


First Degree Murder

by chains_archivist



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, Boys in Chains, Gen, Slaves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-06 06:38:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4211844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chains_archivist/pseuds/chains_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>by Jane Seaton<br/>AU where Russians are slaves. The Enterprise finds Chekov and learns about humanity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Degree Murder

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Dusk, the archivist: this work was originally archived at [Boys in Chains](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Boys_in_Chains), which opened in 2000 as a multifandom archive for both fiction and art, but then sadly went offline in 2005. To bring the archive back, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in December 2014. Open Doors [posted an announcement](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/1832) and e-mailed all creators about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please [contact the Open Doors committee](http://transformativeworks.org/contact/open%20doors).  
> \--  
> First Degree Murder  
> Author: Jane Seaton  
> Fandom: TOS,  
> Rating; PG -13 (For occasional strong language) 
> 
> Disclaimer: Paramount owns the big ships, the characters, the Starbase and anything else they thought up. If they want to take responsibility for the inequities of Third World debt, they're welcome. The specific villains this time around are mine and should not be identified with any real nation, state or government. 
> 
> Feel free to archive, print, distribute free of charge, whatever, so long as you keep the above disclaimer and my name attached. Other stories by me are available courtesy of Teegar at http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/6132, and on that old-fashioned paper stuff, from New Leaf Productions and Oddbalz&Mayhem (for details see http://mindlink.net/lois_balzer/oddbalz.html). 
> 
> Reactions are grovellingly invited.

History   
  
This story takes place in an alternate universe. The divergent points of history which are relevant are as follows:   
  
May 10 1997   
  
A UN sponsored conference is held in Geneva to discuss the rescheduling of Russian foreign debt.   
  
June 22 1997   
  
The conference is abandoned.   
  
July 15 1997   
  
Suspension of the rouble on the New York, Tokyo and London currency exchanges, leading to the cessation of trade with Russia in grain and other basic foodstuffs.   
  
July 26 1998   
  
The AUM Sect, responsible for earlier nerve gas attacks on the Tokyo underground railway system, detonates a nuclear device in the Japanese city of Kobe.   
  
October 23 1999   
  
A state of emergency is declared in the former Soviet republics as food stocks are finally exhausted.   
  
September 14 2000   
  
Outbreaks of cholera in Georgia, bubonic plague in Kahzakstan and tuberculosis in the regions around Moscow are formally declared to be epidemics by the World Health Organisation.   
  
February 2004   
  
The UN agrees with the governments of the former Soviet republics to provide emergency aid in return for the destruction of all remaining Soviet arms stockpiles and the adoption of public health measures including compulsory vaccination and restrictions on free movement of individuals within designated 'plague areas'.   
  
November 2005   
  
The Johannesburg summit leads to the so called Russian Compromise, in which the maintenance of food aid and basic health provision by the UN is formally guaranteed in exchange for the surrender of all Russian economic autonomy to an agency authorised by the UN to realise Russian assets and repay all Russian foreign debt.   
  
March 22 2267   
  
The Terran High Court rules, in the case of CredStat and Starfleet, that payment of a capital sum to CredStat by Starfleet, to release a Russian citizen from the obligations imposed under the Compromise in 2005, would amount to intervention in the domestic politics of a member world, and is therefore unlawful under the founding charter of Starfleet.   
  
Stardate 3201.4   
  
Starbase 4 is destroyed when its warp powered main generator malfunctions.   
  
***   
  
Kirk came into the rec room and looked round for his first officer. The Vulcan was sitting alone, eating his customary vegetarian fare. The captain picked up his own tray and went to join him.   
  
"Spock?"   
  
"Sir," Spock responded without looking away from his meal. Vulcans didn't sulk, of course, but this one was clearly unwilling to engage in even simulated small talk at the moment.   
  
"I'm sorry, Spock. I shouldn't have lost my temper."   
  
"I was not aware that you had," Spock said. "It is, in any case, irrelevant. As you stated, by pressing the matter I was breaking the Federation principle of non-interference, the Vulcan principle of IDIC and the universal standard of good manners. I apologise."   
  
"Accepted."   
  
Spock did look up now. "Thank you, Captain."   
  
Kirk sat down. "I don't like it any more than you do, you know. I didn't want him on board. But what else can I do? We can't just abandon him here. Every other ship headed to Earth was full. I'm just arranging to get him home the only way I can."   
  
"Of course," Spock said neutrally. He laid his knife and fork neatly together. "Although you must be aware that his inability to fend for himself is one point at issue. By arranging repatriation, you are simply seeking to make an unpalatable situation a little more acceptable."   
  
"I'll get him home, I'll locate his family, I'll even pass on Admiral Fleetwood's apparent high opinion of him with a straight face. That has to be the best we can do for him. I presume it's what he wants."   
  
"Have you asked him what he wants, Jim?"   
  
The use of his first name could have signalled a softening of the Vulcan's rigid disapproval, or a clumsy attempt to make an emotional appeal. Kirk couldn't see why Spock would care enough about the Russian to do that.   
  
"How can I? We have about five words in common, four of which he pretends to misunderstand at every possible opportunity."   
  
"Lieutenant Uhura has, I believe, some knowledge of Russian."   
  
Kirk grinned, without really meaning it. "Judging by the fifth word we share, Pavel has no idea how to address a lady. If it was a matter of life and death, I'd ask her to translate. Not otherwise."   
  
Spock was evidently puzzled by this manifestation of gallantry, and Kirk had to admit to himself it made little sense. The lieutenant was well used to the rich language of spaceport workers, and even of starship captains in tight corners, but Pavel's every-other-word fusillade of obscenity was different in a way that Kirk doubted Spock would appreciate, given his literal take on such matters.   
  
"We'll be back at Starbase 3 in a week. I'll hand him over to Welfare as soon as we get there, and you can stop worrying about it. There are more important matters requiring our attention."   
  
"Indeed," Spock said. "I have been reviewing Admiral Hardiman's request for personnel transfers, as you instructed."   
  
Admiral Hardiman was the senior surviving officer in the sector. The whole fleet had been thrown into confusion, and shock, by the disaster at Starbase 4. Personnel from three starships and numerous smaller vessels had been aboard the Base, awaiting crew rotations and new postings. Casualties had exceeded 90%, and even when officers on leave and detachment for training had been recalled, and the few merely injured had been bandaged up and put back to work with indecent haste, the fleet was seriously overstretched in the very disciplines where competent people were hardest to find. There was talk of compulsory extensions to commissions and emergency call up of retired officers. If the Enterprise had not been delayed by the Klingon incursion on Organia, Kirk too might have been mourning a quarter of his crew.   
  
"I hope you remembered that humans don't take to back to back shifts as well as Vulcans," Kirk said, taking the data padd that his first officer was holding out to him. He looked down the list Spock had prepared, his frown deepening. "We can't spare this many engineers."   
  
"Mister Scott assures me that we can. He is happy that the trainees in his department are capable of taking increased responsibility."   
  
Kirk looked doubtful. "Well, if Scotty is prepared to put his neck on the block... What's this? Farrell? And Riley?"   
  
"The Endeavour currently has only two qualified helm and navigation officers. They would still be technically under strength even with Farrell and Riley aboard."   
  
"And we'll be down to two here. One of them, yes, I can see we might have to offer that much. But..."   
  
"I am currently qualified as a relief helm and navigation officer and shuttle pilot, while both Commander Scott and you, Captain, would require only minimal simulator time to reactivate your ratings."   
  
Kirk looked at Spock through narrowed eyes. "That's true," he admitted.   
  
"So the transfers are possible," Spock said, a trifle uncertainly. The captain had evidently reached a conclusion that eluded his first officer. Spock glanced down at the list, to see if the missing data were hiding there.   
  
"Aren't there any qualified officers working in other areas on the Endeavour?" Kirk prompted.   
  
"Captain Noakes has not listed them," Spock said. "You think that he has overstated his difficulties?"   
  
Kirk nodded. "I hate to tell you this, Spock, but that's the kind of thing humans do sometimes. Look, I know it's late, but this is urgent. Everything else here I can agree to. I don't like it, but I know we can cope, particularly on a home run back into Starbase 3. Can you get into the personnel manifests for the Endeavour, and find out just how many qualified people they really have? If I ask Noakes direct, he'll hedge. Let's get the facts and take them straight to the admiral."   
  
"Yes, Captain," Spock responded. He took the padd back from Kirk and stood up. "About the Russian..."   
  
Kirk scowled. "What about him?"   
  
"Admiral Fleetwood had been commander of Starbase 4 for two years, and I believe that the Russian was part of his establishment for all of that time. It seems unlikely that he only understands five words of Standard."   
  
Kirk stared at him for a moment, then laughed. "And if Noakes can hide his light under a bushel, maybe my Russian can do the same? Why, Spock? Why should he?"   
  
"You do not know what his intentions are, by your own admission," Spock reminded Kirk.   
  
"I doubt he has any, and if he does, they're irrelevant. He's a Russian."   
  
Spock looked at Kirk in blank incomprehension. "I do not follow your logic."   
  
"You must know the history, Spock. Pavel is paying off a debt. The Russians messed up their economy and every other nation on Earth bailed them out. He can't just decide to go off and do something else. He has to pay off his share of the debt first. And in his case, he's doing it by working for me, or he would be if I had anything simple enough for him to do."   
  
"Slavery," Spock said baldly.   
  
"Indentured labour," Kirk corrected. "I know your Vulcan sensibilities don't like it, but you don't have a Vulcan equivalent of a Russian babushka and her thirty nine grandchildren that she expects the state to feed, house, vaccinate and generally nursemaid for life while their fathers get drunk on subsidised vodka and the tractors rust in the fields."   
  
"Did the Soviet Union not beat the United States in what was known as the 'space race'?" Spock suggested seriously.   
  
Kirk grinned. "They imported a large number of Scottish engineers some time back then. *Some* of them had the right idea."   
  
With that, Kirk walked away, leaving Spock to contemplate the malleable nature of Terran history.   
  
***   
  
Spock's excursion into the Endeavour's records didn't do much to change his opinion of human veracity. Captain Noakes had at his disposal two further navigators, neither of whom would, in an emergency, find it impossible to abandon their current duties in astro-cartography and warp physics research. The Vulcan contacted Admiral Hardiman's makeshift office and found himself, unexpectedly, speaking to the admiral.   
  
"Commander Spock!" The admiral positively twinkled, as if the Vulcan were a favourite nephew. "If your captain wants you to tell me you can't spare so much as a stores officer, just tell him how I'm having to play receptionist. You don't really need Lieutenant Uhura, do you?"   
  
"I believe we could make a strong case for retaining her on board the Enterprise," Spock replied with a conscious lack of humour. "Certainly stronger than Captain Noakes' case for requisitioning the greater part of our bridge crew."   
  
Hardiman laughed out loud. "Well, you can't blame him for trying."   
  
"Admiral," Spock said severely, "surely you do not condone his lack of candour..."   
  
"I'd do the same in his place. And it's not as if you don't have some spare manpower at navigation..."   
  
"All our qualified navigators and pilots are in departments where we are similarly understaffed."  
  
Hardiman dropped into the chair behind his desk. "Depends what you mean by qualified. You might have to bend the rules a little, but Jim Kirk's never been reluctant to do that."   
  
"I'm not sure I follow you, Admiral," Spock admitted.   
  
"Jim picked up Fleetwood's Russian boy, didn't he? Well, there's another pair of hands for a shuttle, or for the helm in an emergency."   
  
Humans, Spock reflected, had a way of removing chunks of reality from under your feet when you least expected it. "The Russian is a qualified helm officer?"   
  
"Of course not. But Woodie let him pilot his yacht. I have to admit, I thought the first time I saw him that it was just a piece of business, like having your dog fetch your pipe and slippers. But the boy could do it. He taxied me out to the Caesar a couple times, too. Woodie didn't feel he needed watching, said he was a real natural navigator. What does Jim have him doing?"   
  
Spock was silent. It occurred to him, absurdly, that to admit Kirk had been entirely taken in by the Russian's facade of insolent stupidity would be in some way disloyal. Eventually, he said, "I believe Captain Kirk did not think it proper to give a civilian any official role on a Federation starship."   
  
"Well, that's a damn shame," Hardiman said bluntly. "If Jim has a problem with the boy's lack of uniform, tell him he can have a letter from me to okay it. How's Pasha taken all this, by the way? He was lucky Woodie did let him fly the yacht, or he'd have been just one more statistic."   
  
All Spock knew was that the Russian had been one of a small number of survivors picked up from the tip of Starbase 4's docking array. He'd been transferred on to the Enterprise because no one knew what else to do with him and Kirk had signed the Custody Order almost without giving it a second thought. Russians could leave Earth only if spoken for by employers who would guarantee to safeguard their indentured status _ and the income of the government agency whose task it was to realise the Russian debt. Fleetwood would have been paying Russia's creditors for Pavel, and now Kirk was doing the same.   
  
"I believe our Chief Medical Officer pronounced him fit when he came aboard," Spock misdirected.   
  
Hardiman just looked at him. "So, will you tell Jim I'd like to have his agreement to these transfers by noon today, at the latest?"   
  
"I will pass on the request," Spock agreed correctly. He closed the channel and sat for a moment in front of the dead screen.   
  
Spock knew all about the Russian Compromise of 2005, the decades of upheaval that led to it, the waves of famine and plague that had swept the northern Asian continent in the first years of the third Terran millennium, giving the Russian people no choice but to accept assistance on any terms. The Vulcan had called it slavery. In the official _ mostly European, American and Japanese _ history texts, it was called 'Controlled Debt Recovery'. In theory, it was simply an agreement that all the proceeds of Russian labour would, until the Russian debt was repaid, belong to the creditor states. With the formation of a Terran world government, the debt had been consolidated, so that the Russian people could no longer even hope that their creditors might fall out amongst themselves and so bring the agreement to a premature end. In practice, the effect was enslavement. A Russian might only work for an employer who agreed to pay a flat rate daily fee to CredStat. The fee was the same for good work or bad, genius or dunce. All the produce of native Russian agriculture and industry belonged to CredStat. A subsistence wage was the only return, whether one laboured till one's fingers bled or let the tractors _ not that there were many tractors _ rust in the fields. There was no hope, no incentive, no escape.   
  
Kirk, like most Terrans, had probably never met a Russian until he'd found he had one aboard his ship. In taking the young man on, he'd no doubt acted generously. He had no conceivable use for what he perceived as an unskilled, probably illiterate, serf. He would be paying the higher off-world daily fee, inflated to offset the risk that once away from Terra, Russians would find their way into the hands of Orions and the like, and hence cease to be a source of income for CredStat. In return, he had nothing but an abusive and uncooperative tenant in the guest suite adjoining his cabin.   
  
On balance, Spock reflected, the captain might be quite relieved if the Russian were to be requisitioned by Starfleet as a short-commission navigator and given his own cabin.   
  
***   
  
"Captain, I have spoken to Admiral Hardiman..."   
  
Kirk was striding down the corridor towards his quarters. He slowed to accommodate Spock's more measured pace. "And?"   
  
"He is... aware of the situation, but feels that the proposed transfer should take place."   
  
"What?" Kirk stopped dead. "Are you telling me Noakes can't scrape up a single superannuated navigator or pilot? What's he done? Camouflaged them?"   
  
"The Endeavour has two further officers who are qualified for the helm."   
  
"Then I'll agree to Riley going," Kirk said readily, setting off again. "God knows, I've wanted an excuse to..."   
  
"And apparently, we have overlooked one qualified person."   
  
"We have?" Kirk placed a hand on the lock and the door to his cabin slid open. The desk chair crashed to the deck and the Russian stood there, looking as if he'd been found clutching the murder weapon with the corpse still bubbling its death rattle at his feet.   
  
The young man brushed nervously at the heavy fringe which threatened to fall into his eyes. He was slender and less than averagely tall, with a round face which probably made him seem younger than he really was. Spock had only seen him once before, newly transferred from the shuttle that had lifted the survivors off the docking arm, shocked and exhausted by their ordeal. Frankly, the youngster looked more distressed now.   
  
The computer screen let out a faint 'ping' as the image on it collapsed.   
  
"How many times..." Kirk began, then stopped. He walked over to the computer, pointed at it. "No. You're not allowed to touch it. No." He gestured to the Russian and back to the screen, then to the keyboard. "No. Understand?"   
  
The Russian suddenly shrugged, insolently. "No."   
  
Kirk turned to Spock with a sigh of exasperation. "Is that a 'no, I'm not allowed to touch it', or a 'no, I don't understand'? Would you like to perform a mindmeld for me and check it out?"   
  
"Captain," Spock answered levelly, "I do not need to use telepathy to tell you that he is intentionally challenging your authority in the only way open to him." He watched the Russian carefully as he spoke, but there was no reaction. The... the slave didn't care what Spock thought.   
  
"God, I hate doing this, but it's the only thing he *does* understand," Kirk was saying, evidently not really interested in his unwanted possession's state of mind.   
  
The true horror of slavery, Spock found himself reflecting, was its effect on the owner. He'd already known that, of course, in theory, but he had never seen before so graphic a demonstration. Kirk had opened a drawer, taken out a belt and turned back to the Russian.   
  
"Captain..."   
  
"I'm sorry if I'm offending your delicate moral sensibilities, Spock, but he's had three warnings. You said yourself, he's only doing it because he's been ordered not to. There's nothing on there that can possibly be of any interest to him. The screen in his cabin has all the entertainment channels. I've told him this is what happens if he disobeys me. Now I have to follow through. I suggest you leave if you don't want to watch." Kirk sounded more weary than angry.   
  
"Captain, I do not wish to undermine your authority, but it might be wise for you to... postpone this."   
  
Kirk frowned at him. The Russian, for the first time, was showing an interest in the two men, until he realised Spock was looking at him and his eyes glazed intentionally.   
  
The captain coiled the belt loosely round his hand. "Well? Why?"   
  
"What is your name?" Spock asked.   
  
The Russian said nothing. Spock wondered if his blank expression would read as defiance or incomprehension to another human.   
  
"His name's Pavel, or Pasha, according to Fleetwood's PA."   
  
The slave's mouth tightened, as Kirk's would have, Spock knew, if a superior had introduced him casually to a stranger as 'James, or Jimmy.'   
  
"Kak vas zavoot?" Spock asked.   
  
Surprise showed equally on both the human faces.   
  
"Menya zavoot Chekov, Pavel Andreievich." The reply came readily, almost gratefully.   
  
"Orchin rat," Spock said, inadequately. 'Pleased to meet you', however, was the limit of his Russian vocabulary for polite introductions. What was one supposed to say, anyway, on meeting an indentured servant whose eyes kept flicking uncertainly to the leather belt in his master's hands?   
  
Chekov smiled. It was a bitter, grudging smile.   
  
"Do you understand Standard English?"   
  
Chekov glanced at Kirk. "Yes," he said. He smiled again, inviting his owner to be angry with him.   
  
"And speak it?"   
  
"Yes."   
  
"I never asked him..." Kirk said. He still didn't sound annoyed, more embarrassed. He looked down at the belt as if he couldn't remember why he had it. "Pavel," he began uncertainly. "This computer is part of the control system of this ship. It's very unlikely that you could do any damage by playing with it, but it's not impossible. That's why it's important that you don't touch it. You can get all the videos and music and so forth that you want on the screen in your cabin. There's nothing more available on here. Do you understand?"   
  
Chekov had tensed up from the moment Kirk started speaking to him. Now he looked carefully at Spock before addressing himself to the captain. "I understand. I understand if I touch it you will beat me."   
  
"So you won't touch it again?" Kirk said, clenching his hands on the belt.   
  
"I understand if I touch it you will beat me," Chekov repeated. He shrugged.   
  
Spock considered. There might not be spare personnel available at Starbase 3, when the Enterprise arrived there. If Riley and Farrell went with the Endeavour now, the Enterprise could be undermanned, dangerously, for months before the situation corrected itself. But if Kirk refused the transfer, the Endeavour would be at risk. The Vulcan had half suspected Fleetwood of keeping a lapdog, someone with no pride, happy to fly the admiral's yacht on a tight leash in exchange for a fairly comfortable existence. This was no lapdog.   
  
While he was thinking, Spock missed some gesture or order from Kirk to the indentured man. Chekov suddenly turned his back on the captain, pulling the plain grey shirt he wore off over his head at the same time. His back bore a striping of recent bruises. It was strange, Spock thought, that there were no older marks, but perhaps they'd faded. Perhaps earlier episodes of discipline had been as carefully administered as the recent beatings, not breaking skin to leave scars.   
  
"You don't have to watch if you'd rather not, Spock."   
  
"I know it is happening. Whether I watch or not is immaterial."   
  
Holding the shirt balled up in one hand, Chekov leaned his fists against the cabin wall and braced himself. Five new stripes, deepening in colour, joined the pattern of bruises. Chekov replaced his shirt immediately, and turned back, his face showing neither pain nor remorse, nor, Spock judged, any other emotion that the Russian could avoid. Certainly, the cheek of a few minutes earlier had vanished.   
  
Spock watched Kirk stow the belt and push the drawer shut. "Why is this a problem, Spock?" he asked. "You know I can't postpone disciplinary action. It's for his own good. If I can't trust him to behave himself, he'll have to go back to Starbase 3 in the brig. Is that a better solution?"   
  
"You have beaten him before?"   
  
"Yes," Kirk said shortly. "For swearing at me. I gave him three warnings, but I don't think he believed me. Maybe in future he will." He looked at Chekov. "Right?"   
  
Chekov looked back at him in silence.   
  
"I believe that Mister Chekov is an experienced navigator and pilot."   
  
"What?" Kirk exclaimed. "Spock, Noakes is pulling a fast one."   
  
"Also, I suspect that if I examined the detailed logs of this terminal, I would find that he has obtained full access to the computer. That access was important to him, important enough to risk punishment."   
  
Kirk turned to the Russian. "You broke through the security lockout? Without tripping any alarms? How? And why?"   
  
Chekov's defiance seemed to evaporate. "I wanted to know if admiral was alive," he said simply. "But he is dead... After, I don't know what I want. The lockout was easy to fool," he added casually. "But I don't care that you caught me. Why should I care?"   
  
Spock couldn't make sense of Chekov's reaction. A moment ago, he'd decided _ the Vulcan was sure _ not to court further pain. Suddenly, that decision was overturned. Perhaps, Spock considered uneasily, this man was a representative of a less sophisticated, less rational, sub species. A species to which Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky and Ahkmatova belonged...   
  
Kirk shook his head, again ignoring emotions in favour of facts in a fashion that astonished his first officer. "You're a pilot? What have you flown?"   
  
"Victoria, admiral's yacht. He taught me. Also to navigate. I ran simulator program." The Russian gestured at the computer. "Just because I was bored. I didn't hurt anything."   
  
"Admiral Fleetwood let you sit as co-pilot? Is that what you mean?"   
  
"To begin, until I knew how. Then he let me to pilot her, and plot course and so on. To begin, I am pilot while he is busy, or while he is resting sometimes. Then, later, he let me to fly alone, to bring yacht to meet him perhaps. I have papers... pilot's licence."   
  
Kirk was beginning to look punched out by too many surprises. He scowled at Spock. "I have a staff meeting in a few minutes. After that, I'll take him... take Pavel to the auxiliary bridge and run some simulations with him. This sounds like snake oil to me, but if Woodie let him loose with his little dreamboat, and took the trouble to get him a pilot's licence... We'll just check it out."   
  
Spock raised an eyebrow. "Of course, Captain, but shouldn't you..."   
  
"Shouldn't I *what*?" Kirk demanded shortly.   
  
"I am not pilot for you," Chekov said. He turned to Spock. "This is what you mean, he must ask me? There is no need. I am not pilot for anyone. I am stupid, ignorant, useless Russian. Not pilot."   
  
***   
  
"Well, d'you blame him?" McCoy demanded rhetorically as Spock poured coffee in the senior officer's mess. He shook his head when Spock offered him a cup. "I can't afford to have my hands shaking any more than they are already. I'm a quarter way through emergency surgical reconstruction on four patients this morning. No, I'm not surprised. He's probably the first Russian in two hundred years who's had something anyone else might conceivably want. Why shouldn't he try a little blackmail?"   
  
"I can't afford to let him blackmail me," Kirk said shortly. "I need to make a decision and then we're both committed. I need to be able to trust him..."   
  
"That is true," Spock agreed. "But I don't think it is a problem. Admiral Fleetwood trusted him enough to let him pilot the Victoria. The value of the yacht, even as stolen property, greatly exceeds any material reward which you are in a position to offer him, Jim."   
  
"So what does he want?" Kirk asked impatiently.   
  
"I believe he was close to tears when we left him," Spock said, sounding a little unsure of himself.   
  
"Why not? The captain beat him, in front of you, Spock. A human male can't stand to be humiliated by another male, least of all in front of witnesses. The only way Jim could have made it worse would have been to do it in front of a woman, I reckon..."   
  
"Bones!" Kirk interrupted. "I didn't set out to humiliate him. I just delivered exactly what he knew he'd get if he disobeyed me. And he wasn't in tears. He was as cocky as ever."   
  
"He was not defiant, or insolent; not in the same way that he was earlier," Spock insisted firmly. "I repeat, I believe he was close to tears."   
  
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence.   
  
"Maybe tears worked on Woodie." McCoy suggested. "He always struck me as a soft touch."   
  
"How old do you think Chekov is?" Kirk asked unexpectedly.   
  
"I don't think. I know. He's not far off twenty two."   
  
"And he'd been with the admiral how long? Two years, didn't you say, Spock?" Kirk queried.   
  
"That seemed likely. I am not certain," Spock admitted.   
  
"He's been on Starfleet's medical records since he was eighteen, so say three, near enough."   
  
Kirk nodded at McCoy's answer, accepting the unspoken assumption that Starfleet wouldn't bother to keep records of a Russian unless he was connected to someone pretty high up. "When did we get the casualty list through? With all the fatalities on the station? I know rumours have been flying round ever since we got here, but when did the names get into the computer?"   
  
McCoy shrugged. "An hour or so ago."   
  
"So when we went to my cabin just now, Spock, he'd only just discovered for certain that Woodie was dead? Because I didn't tell him. It didn't occur to me."   
  
Spock nodded slowly. "After that length of time, he might have felt some... attachment to the admiral."   
  
The doctor snorted. "Who knows? Now, excuse me, gentlemen, I have a patient waiting for me."  
  
To McCoy's surprise, the first officer followed him out of the rec room. "Problem, Spock?"   
  
"You were not surprised that Captain Kirk has used physical chastisement on the young man."   
  
"No. A kid like that is going to test the limits, see what he can get away with."   
  
"The punishment did not appear to be particularly effective in correcting Chekov's behaviour."   
  
"Then Jim didn't beat him hard enough, or long enough, or often enough."   
  
"I do not believe the captain wanted to beat Chekov at all. He seems to think he has no alternative."   
  
McCoy snorted. "No one else is going to beat another man's dog for him. If that won't work, if the boy's out of control, he'll just have to go to the brig."   
  
"The brig is not usually considered appropriate for periods of detention exceeding forty eight hours."   
  
"Well, no. I guess it is a little cramped. I suppose I could prescribe tranquillisers. That might be kinder..."   
  
"Tranquillisers?" Spock queried.   
  
"Yes, just till he gets back to Earth, to people he knows. Better than letting him get stressed and unhappy to no purpose..."   
  
"Doctor McCoy, I had no idea you were also a veterinarian." Spock spun on his heel and positively stalked away down the corridor.   
  
  
  
Sulu finished setting up the simulation on the auxiliary bridge. "So where is this guy? Did Mister Spock tell you anything about him?"   
  
Lieutenant Farrell shrugged. "Only that if he was any use, I'd be hauling my kit over to the Endeavour. I don't know why *he* can't go if they want someone so badly. Apparently he's Russian."   
  
Sulu turned, his face registering his surprise. "Russian? A Russian pilot?"   
  
"Yes, Lieutenant, or more likely a navigator." Kirk ushered the young man in through the door. "Is the scenario ready to run?"   
  
The helmsman nodded and sat down in his own place. "All ready, Captain." He watched the newcomer step down to the lower level. The Russian looked very unsure of himself, rather cowed, as if coming here hadn't been his idea. He ignored the two lieutenants as he glanced nervously round the cramped little compartment .   
  
"Have you flown a constitution class ship before?" Sulu asked him as the Russian slid carefully into the other seat at the helm. He was answered with a silent shake of the man's head.   
  
"No, stupid question, really. Well, let's see how badly you do..."   
  
Chekov's fingers froze on the controls. He sat back in the chair, withdrawing his hands into his lap.   
  
Kirk leaned over his shoulder and continued the initialising routine Chekov had started. "Go on. Just do what you can."   
  
"Someone has remapped control layout," Chekov said quietly. "I am not familiar with this. It is... not standard."   
  
"Nothing on this ship is standard," Farrell interposed.   
  
Sulu glanced back at Kirk. "Is he qualified?"   
  
"Yes. He has a civilian license for warp flight, up to fourteen tonnes. Apparently he piloted Admiral Fleetwood's gig."   
  
Sulu frowned. "He's just memorised a few basic routines, I expect. You can't expect him to know how to do this. I bet the Victoria has the most advanced autopiloting you can get from a civilian yard."   
  
"Can you restore a standard configuration, Lieutenant?" Kirk asked, turning to Farrell. "Look, Mike, I don't want to lose you to Captain Noakes, but I can't be selfish about this. For now, you have to go where the fleet needs you most. I want to know what Pavel here can do. Run through some straightforward stuff to let him settle in, get the feel of it, Sulu. Then take a break in... say an hour, and I'll come by to see how you're getting on after that."   
  
Chekov slipped out of his seat to let Farrell access the controls. He stared at the viewscreen while the lieutenant worked and Kirk departed.   
  
"Six credits fifty," Sulu said suddenly.   
  
"What?" Farrell looked up from the readout. "What's that?"   
  
"I heard, that's what each and every Russian owes each and every citizen of Earth. At least, that was the figure a couple months ago. They're not even managing to repay the interest on the capital, so it's going up all the time."   
  
"Is that right?" Farrell straightened and waved Chekov back into his seat. "That's ridiculous. Why don't they just wipe the slate?"   
  
"Think about it. This one Russian is in debt to the tune of nearly twenty billion credits."   
  
Chekov had restarted the initialisation. His pale face had coloured slightly but otherwise he wasn't reacting.   
  
"I am ready to start," he said. His voice wavered a little.   
  
Sulu threw a long-suffering look at Farrell. "That's a hell of a lot of money."   
  
"Makes my overdraft look respectable," Farrell agreed. "Well, boys, I'm going to leave you to it. I have to pack, just in case he really can fly this bird."   
  
"Don't hold your breath," Sulu suggested. "Okay... what was your name? Pavel? Here you are then, Pavel. We're in sector triple-zero, on a straight run from Vulcan to Earth. Let's see you plot us a course. The little bright lights here on the display are stars, and the green triangles are planets. You don't want to hit any of those."   
  
Farrell turned back from the door. The Russian didn't seem to have understood Sulu's remarks, or he was pretending he hadn't. He'd called up a navicomp display on the main viewscreen and was running through the standard moves for plotting a warp trajectory in a region of space more than adequately served by navigation beacons.   
  
"What's eating you, Hikaru? Maybe he can do it. If I had a yacht like the Victoria, I wouldn't let just anyone helm her."   
  
"Kobe, 1998," Sulu said.   
  
"What?"   
  
"The destruction of Kobe, and three million Japanese civilians, when a terrorist gang detonated a nuclear device they'd bought from a Russian army surplus sale."   
  
"Oh. Yeah." Farrell stood for a moment, watching the fine blue line of the Russian's projected course come up on the screen. "Well, that was a long time ago."   
  
"Some things," Sulu said coldly, "are never a long time ago."   
  
***   
  
The rec room was busy with men and officers eating first shift lunch when Kirk came down from the bridge. McCoy wandered over to him, a cup of coffee in one hand and a danish in the other. The surgeon had shadows like smudgy thumb prints under his eyes. He grinned half-heartedly at Kirk's concerned expression. "At least the life and death stuff is finished. Where's that Russian of yours?"   
  
Kirk pointed to where Chekov was helping himself to a hot drink of some description from a dispenser. McCoy scowled. "You've given him access to the servitors? I hope you've put restrictions on that. If he works out he can get vodka whenever he wants, you'll never see him sober again."   
  
"He's an alcoholic?" Kirk demanded.   
  
"No. He's a Russian. Same thing, of course, but Woodie seems to have managed to keep him out of the cocktail cabinet. His liver's healthy enough."   
  
"I'll get Spock to limit his access, if you think it's necessary..."   
  
"Just a sensible precaution, Captain. How did he make out in the simulations this morning?"   
  
Kirk shrugged. "I'm about to find out. Lieutenant!"   
  
"Captain?"   
  
Sulu turned round. The colleagues he'd been talking to melted away, leaving the three officers with an empty table. Kirk gestured to the others to sit down with him.   
  
"So how did Pavel make out?" he asked.   
  
"Okay. He can do the standard stuff. I guess it's not too surprising he got a civilian license. After all, you just have to plug in to the control frequency and state your destination."   
  
"But he can't do any more than that?"   
  
The helmsman shook his head. "I doubt it."   
  
"Did you let him try?"   
  
"I suggested we run some more advanced stuff, but he wouldn't. He knows his limitations, I'll give him that."   
  
Kirk scowled annoyance. "Lieutenant, I want to know what he *can* do, not what *you* think he *can't* do. If we can't find enough people, we're effectively putting a starship on ice. Using him here will free up the Endeavour, even if he just minds the computer on the dead watch."   
  
"If that's all he's going to do, sir, you might as well let the computer mind itself."   
  
"He wouldn't have got a pilot's license if he was that lame," Kirk said firmly, not letting his own doubt show in his voice. "Did you tell him he could come in here and get a drink?"   
  
"What? Oh, yes, sir. I didn't think. I..."   
  
"No. That's okay." Kirk glanced across to see what the Russian was doing now. He wasn't really doing anything, just standing in the middle of the rec room, a styrofoam cup in one hand, the other dug deep into the pocket of the nondescript grey pants that didn't quite match his nondescript grey shirt, as if his appearance wasn't something that could possibly matter. He was garnering quite a few curious stares from around the room, but no one made eye contact.   
  
Suddenly Chekov looked straight back at the captain, clenched the fist in the pocket, and began to walk across the room towards the senior officers. Kirk felt an odd cramp in his stomach at the youngster's deliberate, determined appearance. Of course, Pavel had to learn how to behave, how to adapt to his circumstances, there was no question of that, but...   
  
Chekov laid something on the table with a metallic clink. He looked up at Sulu, not at Kirk, and withdrew his hand. A heap of dull, metal discs lay on the plastic table top. Kirk noticed that the Russian's other hand had crumpled the empty styrofoam cup, as if some unmanageably strong emotion was escaping through that impotent gesture.   
  
"What?" Sulu reached out and spread the four coins. An ancient, tarnished five credit piece and three smaller, slightly shinier, fifty cent tokens. Kirk hadn't seen Federation coinage since he'd been old enough to run a magnetic card through a shop terminal.   
  
"Where d'you get these?" McCoy asked.   
  
"They were gift, from Admiral Fleetwood," Chekov said. "I cannot have bank account, or bankcard, like you."   
  
"I meant... I only meant I haven't seen coins like this since my grandpappy used to send me out to buy ice cream..." McCoy stopped, as if he'd suddenly realised how demeaning the comparison might be.   
  
"They are good money, legal. They were a gift. They are mine, to do what I want."   
  
"Then what do you want? You don't have to pay for food in here," Kirk explained impatiently. "I have to feed you. And it doesn't matter if you eat here or in your own cabin. I'm quite happy for you to eat in here."   
  
Chekov hadn't looked away from Sulu throughout.   
  
The helmsman picked up the coins and pocketed them. "Okay. Debt paid." He held out his hand to the Russian. "Shake on it?"   
  
Chekov didn't seem to know what Sulu meant, but he let the lieutenant clasp his hand firmly for a couple of seconds, then release it.   
  
The intercom whistled, sparing Kirk the need to comment on something he didn't understand. He turned away to the nearest comm unit, took the message and came straight back to group. "Lieutenant..."   
  
"Yes, sir?"   
  
"That was Admiral Hardiman. Apparently the Endeavour is heading out in two hours, with Farrell and Riley, whether I agree or not. He can either send us back to Starbase 3, as planned, where we can hang around for weeks waiting for replacement helm officers, or we can accept an emergency medical shipment for Alpha Tyr that's ready first thing tomorrow and needs to get there yesterday. I can only do the latter if I know at least that Chekov's pilot's license wasn't just a favour to Admiral Fleetwood from the local authorities. Pavel..." The Russian looked up at him blankly. "Come down to the auxiliary bridge with me. We'll have a look at how you made out. Sulu, pass the news to Farrell and Riley and rework the shift rota, using every qualified officer we have. Make sure Mister Scott and I get enough simulator time and co-pilot hours to requalify as soon as possible, but remember Engineering is short staffed. Bring me the results as soon as you have them. Okay?"   
  
Sulu's 'yes, sir' went unregistered as Kirk took Chekov by the arm and hurried him out of the rec room. McCoy frowned.   
  
"What's wrong, Doctor? I know we're going to be trying to pilot in our sleep, but..."   
  
"Why the hell did you take his money, Lieutenant? He said it was a present. It was probably all the money he has. Did you make some stupid bet with him or something?"   
  
Sulu coloured a little. "I... I didn't want to take it, Doctor. It wasn't a bet. I was shooting my mouth off, about how much the Russians still owe CredStat. I guess he took it personally. And just now... I thought he'd be more insulted if I refused it, or took it and just handed it back to him, than if I accepted it." Sulu picked up Chekov's abandoned, crumpled cup. "Look, if you can work out a tactful way for me to return it, I'd really appreciate hearing about it."   
  
***   
  
The lighting in the auxiliary bridge seemed to have become simultaneously harsher and dimmer as the morning passed.   
  
"Please, I am tired," Chekov said, staring blankly at the simulated starfield on the viewscreen. "I cannot do this."   
  
"Yes, you can!" Kirk wasn't sure if it was truth or an illusion fuelled by his own exhaustion, but a dozen times, the instant Sulu had racked the difficulty of the simulations up from routine to anything more challenging, he was sure he'd seen Chekov reach for the right move, only to cut it off with another stubborn, "I don't know how to do this."   
  
Hell, just the accuracy with which the Russian distinguished the different levels of simulation *every time*, gave him away.   
  
"All right then. Go to the rec room. Can you find your way back there?" He half expected Chekov to deny that too, but the Russian nodded dully. "Get yourself something to eat, whatever you like. Ask for help if you can't..." He stopped. Chekov had hacked the main computer. He wasn't going to be defeated by a rec room servitor. "We'll join you in a few minutes. And Pavel..."   
  
The youngster had already risen from his seat. He stopped, but didn't turn.   
  
"You've worked hard today. Thank you." Kirk waited for a response, maybe some pleasure at the compliment. He was disappointed, but went on anyway. "You're very good at this. Even if you don't know how to do the more difficult stuff, if no one's shown you, there's no reason you couldn't learn."   
  
The moment they were alone together, Kirk turned to Sulu, who looked nearly as red-eyed as the tyro navigator. "Spock thinks he broke into the navigation simulations through the computer in my cabin. Could he be recognising these scenarios, just replaying tutorials he's learned pat?"   
  
Sulu shook his head. "No. I've been feeding manual variations and none of them have thrown him. He's much too good for that. But he's also perfectly consistent, isn't he? He can spot a non-standard problem coming almost before I can."   
  
"So why's he doing this?" Kirk asked, propping himself on the back of Chekov's vacated seat. "He told me he could fly the Victoria very vehemently, very... proudly, I suppose. And the next moment, he was saying he was useless, which is what he's been telling us ever since. You know, the more I think about it, the less I can imagine Admiral Fleetwood letting him pilot any vessel without being qualified to deal with whatever might come up. He wouldn't have let Chekov just scrape through a commercial test."   
  
"Then why won't he admit he can do it?" Sulu demanded, irritation with the navigator creeping into his voice. "After all, it's a medical emergency we're asking him to help out with, and the Endeavour is dealing with piracy. He can't approve of thousands of people dying of plague, or being terrorised by Orions, whatever his own problems."   
  
"Maybe that's it," Kirk agreed. "Maybe he just doesn't identify with the Federation, and with Starfleet."   
  
"Well, that's typical of the Russians," Sulu said heatedly, "not being able to look beyond their own petty interests. I suppose he knew he was well off working for Admiral Fleetwood, so he behaved himself. Now he's realised we're not going to cut him any slack..."   
  
"Maybe we should."   
  
"Sir?"   
  
"As you say, we're talking about saving thousands of lives, if we can get those vaccines to Alpha Tyr a couple of days earlier than another ship. If we can't appeal to a sense of duty, or discipline, or common humanity, maybe we have to appeal to something more basic."   
  
Sulu frowned. "You can't pay him. Or at least, he can't keep it if you do..."   
  
"We could fudge that, I imagine." Kirk thought ahead. The moment Chekov got back to Earth, there'd be nothing for him to spend any money on. "I can hardly bribe him with vodka. The whole point is he has to be functional."   
  
"A better cabin?" Sulu suggested hopelessly. "Sex?"   
  
Kirk frowned. "I'll pretend you didn't say that. Although... if we had more time, maybe making friends among the crew would do the trick. Esprit de corps. All that."   
  
"But he's not part of the 'corps' is he? How did marine navies keep their conscripts in order?"   
  
"They flogged them, and I think they just killed most of them," Kirk said shortly. "Look, we're wasting time here for now. He can go on playing dumb indefinitely. We either have to find out why he's doing it, or just change his mind about wanting to do it. Sulu, you haven't eaten since this morning either. Go have lunch with him. Make friends with him. He's not that much younger than you, and he *is* a good pilot, even if he won't admit it. You must have something in common. Maybe he'd like to use the gym this afternoon."   
  
***   
  
Sulu found Chekov eating alone. He asked if he could join the Russian and was ignored, so sat down anyway. He asked about what Chekov was eating and was ignored. He ate his own meal, alternating mouthfuls of fried chicken with comments on other diners, past exploits of the Enterprise and her crew and what he imagined to be the merits of the Victoria. Chekov rearranged a cheese salad on one plate, then moved on and dismantled an apple pie on another. He drank some water.   
  
When Sulu finally finished, Chekov stood up too. "Are we going back to bridge now?"   
  
"No. We... we got the message that you don't want to do it."   
  
"Good."   
  
"But we don't understand why."   
  
"I will go back to my cabin."   
  
"Do *you* understand why we need a navigator so badly?"   
  
Chekov stopped in his tracks. "So badly you ask me? Yes. Many officers were killed at Starbase 4. I saw casualty list. Admiral Fleetwood too."   
  
Sulu swallowed. "Well, yes, I can see... Well, when things are going okay, you can just go on without questioning things. When you're in trouble, you look at all the solutions, and sometimes you see some you didn't expect."   
  
Chekov started walking again and Sulu followed.   
  
"Okay, what do you want, then? What can we offer you to make it worth your while?"   
  
A passing engineer grinned at Sulu and patted the Russian on the head. "You don't have to pay, Sulu. That's the beauty of it."   
  
"Get lost, Craigie." Sulu turned back to Chekov, who had gone ominously pale.   
  
"Go screw yourself!" the Russian yelled unexpectedly, his voice carrying clearly across the room. "And when you finish..."   
  
Craigie turned round, still grinning. He was a good six inches taller than the navigator, and maybe fifty pounds heavier, all bone and muscle. "Is he giving you trouble, Mister Sulu?" The engineer flexed his large hands as he walked back towards them.   
  
"Craigie, just..."   
  
Chekov landed an ill-judged punch on Craigie's washboard stomach. Sulu could tell the impact almost crippled the Russian but Chekov stood his ground, waiting for a reaction.   
  
Craigie shook his head. "I think there's a mosquito in here, Lieutenant. Shall I swat it, or call environmental to take care of it?"   
  
"Craigie, you'd better get the hell out of here," Sulu said heavily.   
  
The engineer looked a little taken aback. He didn't argue though, just moved off.   
  
"Why?" Chekov asked.   
  
"Why what?"   
  
"Why do you send him away? You call me whore, then he calls me whore. No difference."   
  
"I didn't..."   
  
"Look, I understand. There is a medical emergency and this ship is not ready to respond, yes? I understand correct?"   
  
"That's right. And after that, we're not ready to respond if the Klingons launch an attack, or the Romulans invade again, but I suppose you don't care about any of that either_ No, I mean, I could understand if you didn't feel very involved, if you didn't identify with the wider interests of the Federation. You're not even a Federation citizen, after all, so..."   
  
"No. So not eligible to join Starfleet. Admiral Fleetwood said it would not be allowed. How can I be navigator?"   
  
"That's just sour grapes."   
  
"What is- what are sour grapes?"   
  
"I mean, I presume you wanted to join, then you found you couldn't, and now you're not going to admit you ever wanted to."   
  
"I wanted to."   
  
"Then... then why not do this? Even if at the end of it some stuffed shirt admiral says you still can't join, at least you've had something."   
  
"I did not say I not _ I don't _ want to. I can not. Not I will not. I... am... not... competent. It will be dangerous. I will make mistakes. It is safer for a different ship to take the medical supplies. They will arrive safely. Not with me. I can not."   
  
Officers were entering and leaving the rec room, skirting past Sulu and Chekov, eyebrows raised at the yelling match. Sulu swallowed his anger and lowered his voice.   
  
"Why won't you let us be the judge of that? You're not going to kill anyone running a simulation."   
  
"It is wasting of time. I heard captain say he has too few hours flying. He should run simulation, not watch me."   
  
"That's a formality, just like you not being in Starfleet is a formality in a situation like this."   
  
"Just like Russian nationality is formality?"   
  
Sulu breathed in sharply through his teeth. "As far as I'm concerned, that is irrelevant. I thought we..."   
  
"To me, Lieutenant, it is not irrelevant. I am Russian. I am proud Russian. And you cannot admit how ashamed it is to be Japanese."   
  
Chekov started away down the corridor.   
  
"Why the hell should I be ashamed to be Japanese?" Sulu called after him.   
  
"Kobe, 1998. AUM sect were Japanese, yes?"   
  
"Yeah, well, they were crazy or something..."   
  
"Geneva, 1997. Japanese delegation refused to co-operate in rescheduling of Russian debt, leading to collapse of rouble and end to grain imports..."   
  
"Well, we_"   
  
"...Wanted that we give you our islands. Japan thought perhaps when we are hungry enough we will give up. We will never be hungry enough, or tired enough, or shameful enough. You think I will let people die to get money? Or what? Or women, or vodka? I can not pilot this ship. Understand?"   
  
A small crowd had accumulated behind Chekov, unwilling to continue down the corridor to the rec room through the verbal battlefield. Sulu could sense a similar crowd at his back.   
  
"Yes, I... I understand."   
  
"Good. Go screw yourself."   
  
***   
  
Kirk sat in his chair, aware of the minutes ticking away. Hardiman had been very restrained about chasing him over the decision to accept the medical mission, but the pressure remained.   
  
"I have accessed the Victoria's flight records, Captain," Spock reported from his station. "But since it is a civilian vessel, conforming to Terran requirements, they are less helpful than I had anticipated."   
  
"You must be able to get some idea of how he handled her," Kirk protested.   
  
Spock shook his head slightly. "When Chekov is recorded as solo pilot, the ship uses conventional pre-registered flight paths. He sometimes docks manually. When he does so, his reactions and coordination are of a high standard."   
  
"It's not natural," Kirk complained. "If I'd been allowed to take the Victoria out when I was his age, I'd have been..." He realised his bridge crew were listening. "I'd have been tempted to show off a little. Didn't he ever try to see what she was capable of?"   
  
"Manual flight and more ostentatious manoeuvres are recorded when both Chekov and Admiral Fleetwood were logged as pilots, but they were not conscientious in recording who had primary control. They appear to have taken each other's stations without following strict logging-in procedures."   
  
Kirk sighed. "And you just have the black box recordings? No visuals?"   
  
"There are some visuals. That is how I discovered the recurrent discrepancy between the recorded pilot and the identity of the person physically at the controls. Do you wish to see an example?"   
  
Kirk gestured at the viewscreen. "Go ahead." If it didn't confirm Chekov's ability to pilot, at least seeing how Admiral Fleetwood managed the Russian might help Kirk to make a better fist of being a slave owner... There, he'd admitted it, he realised.   
  
The Victoria's cockpit was fairly cramped. As the recorded image steadied, Kirk watched Fleetwood taking the left hand seat.   
  
\--"Okay, Pasha."--   
  
\--The co-pilot turned with a smile that was unmistakably genuine. "Yes, sir. Base Control has cleared our flight plan. Pre-flight is complete. Fuel at eighty seven percent, impulse engines on standby, warp readiness two minutes and thirteen seconds."--   
  
\---"Take us out then."--   
  
The admiral struck Kirk as older, more tired than he'd expected. He'd only met Fleetwood a few times, the most recent more than three years ago. The man had aged significantly since.   
  
As the yacht turned, the Starbase came into view. The sight of it reminded Kirk just how little of the gleaming silver structure had survived the explosion. All those people, safe inside one moment and the next...   
  
\--"ETA?"--   
  
\--"Thirty five minutes, sir, at warp two."--   
  
\--"Oh, we can afford to take longer than that." Fleetwood suddenly leaned across the helm and hit switches. The pale green navigation display etched onto the front screen of the Victoria vanished.--   
  
\--"Fly her by eye, Pasha. There are comets, just above the plane..."--   
  
\--"Daedalus and Icarus, yes."--   
  
\--"Can you find them for me?"--   
  
\--"I think so, sir."--   
  
***   
  
Half an hour later, Spock stopped the replay. "The admiral must have had a high degree of confidence in Mister Chekov's abilities. The recording ceases there. I imagine it was archived because it included such unusual views from within the comet's tail. However I am not sure whether the recording justifies the risk of such a close approach."   
  
At the height of the display, a halo of frozen vapour had glowed around the Victoria, filling her cockpit with ghostly reflected light. Fleetwood had sat back in his seat throughout, never touching the controls, never bringing the navigational screens and proximity alarms back on line. Neither man had said much. There was nothing to be said, Kirk imagined. They were like father and son, or even two old friends, sharing the wonder of being there, right there, at the heart of it.   
  
Kirk sat for a moment, still looking at the blank screen. Finally, he turned to Spock. "And Woodie taught him to fly like that. I think you were right, Spock. He'd just discovered the admiral was dead. He must be... devastated."   
  
"Nonetheless, the Enterprise is required to take medical supplies to Alpha Tyr. If their roles were reversed, I am sure that the admiral would be continuing to perform his duties."   
  
"But it's not Chekov's duty, not in the same way. Look, there must be some way round this. Can't Starfleet... buy him out, or something?"   
  
"It would be judged a political act. The High Court so ruled on Stardate 1533."   
  
Kirk looked surprised. "Starfleet tried to buy someone else out?"   
  
"Admiral Fleetwood attempted to arrange for Chekov to be admitted to the Academy, and thereafter, presumably, to Starfleet. He argued that paying the necessary capital sum to the CredStat agency would be equivalent to paying transportation costs for colonial applicants, or special support for disadvantaged students, but the specific terms of the 2005 Agreement made that case untenable."   
  
Kirk was aware that he wasn't the only one to find all this unsettling. The skeleton bridge crew were exchanging glances and muttered comments. "I don't understand," he objected, ignoring them. "Fleetwood wasn't short of funds, not if the Victoria is anything to go by, and his mansion in San Francisco. He had family money. Why didn't he buy Chekov out himself?"   
  
Spock raised an eyebrow. "There is much in this situation that I find incomprehensible, Captain. Perhaps he realised that their somewhat unequal relationship was to his liking."   
  
Kirk laughed uneasily. "Just what are you suggesting, Mister Spock?"   
  
"That the admiral's relationship with Chekov appeared, from that brief recording, to be intense and paternal. An indentured servant could be, effectively, a son who would never leave home and never make choices of which his surrogate father disapproved. To a certain type of individual, that might be attractive."   
  
"I had no idea you were such an expert on human psychology."   
  
"I would not claim to be," Spock answered impassively.   
  
Kirk stood in sick bay, watching McCoy check on one of his surgical cases from the morning. The patient grinned as he flexed his reconstructed leg. "I can't believe it, Doc. You're a miracle worker. Just saying thank you seems... Well, thanks, anyway."   
  
"Don't mention it. Just keep up the physio." McCoy squeezed the young lieutenant's shoulder and turned away to Kirk.   
  
"Yes, Captain?"   
  
"Can we have a word in private?"   
  
"Of course." McCoy led the way into his office. He gestured at the locker where he kept the captain's favourite label brandy, but Kirk shook his head.   
  
"I've just been watching a visual recording of Admiral Fleetwood and Chekov, taking a pleasure flight in the admiral's gig. You wouldn't know it was the same kid. He's like... everyone's favourite nephew. Yet from the moment he arrived on board the Enterprise, he was determined to be trouble..."   
  
"Hold on," McCoy said, frowning. "What are you getting at here? He was real quiet when I first saw him. He wasn't making trouble for anyone."   
  
"Maybe, but he's not exactly falling over himself trying to be helpful now, is he? I'm sure if the admiral had asked him to get out and push the Enterprise to Alpha Tyr, he'd have died trying. But he won't do anything for me. You'd think I was the devil trying to recruit him for eternal damnation. Somehow, I have to tap in to whatever hold Woodie had on him."   
  
"Maybe he just liked Woodie," McCoy suggested.   
  
"Then how do I get him to like *me*? Come on, Bones. This could be life and death."   
  
McCoy frowned deeper. "It's a shame you had to hit him..."   
  
"I know. That was a misunderstanding, anyhow, because I thought he didn't understand Standard. That's not going to happen again."   
  
"Yes, but... Jim, I think you're just starting out from the wrong place here. You're used to cadets and ensigns arriving on board who already think you're the closest thing to God they're ever going to encounter. Treat them halfway fairly, make some small talk about their families, look pleased when they manage to work a shift without blowing us all up, and they're yours for life. You're pretty good at it, but... he didn't come on board with the ink on his graduating diploma still wet."   
  
"No, he came on board shocked and frightened, having just lost his home and his... his benefactor, I suppose. But Starfleet was Woodie's life. I can't believe the admiral didn't instil more respect in him for the fleet than any Academy commandant could have done. I can't believe Woodie didn't have a good word for the Enterprise, too. So we rescue him, we give him first class medical care, he gets his own cabin and a free ride back to Earth. And at that point, he chooses to pretend he can't understand us. Why?"   
  
McCoy had started to look decidedly uncomfortable.   
  
"What's wrong, Bones?"   
  
"We were pretty pushed in sick bay when he arrived. He came in with a dozen or some walking wounded from the docking arm, and I had three cases of radiation poisoning too. He might have felt... well, he didn't get looked at for a while."   
  
"He had to wait in line?"   
  
"He got sent to the back of the line. And when I checked him out quickly and saw he just had a few knocks and scratches, I... well, we'd been full stretch for nearly twelve hours by then. I didn't realise he'd understand me. I sent a couple of paramedics to take a break, told them to deal with him when they'd had a rest."   
  
Kirk was frowning now. "Brilliant."   
  
"Well, it's worse than that. I was practically sleep walking by then and I... I hadn't noticed he'd dislocated a couple of fingers and perforated an ear drum. And... and taken quite a dose of radiation too. Jim, we were all running on emergency batteries. It was just unfortunate..."   
  
"You left him to last because someone didn't examine him properly? Who was doing triage?"   
  
"I left him to last because everyone else was... because he was Russian. Okay? Chapel was responsible for triage, but she never saw him. If you want to blame someone, blame me."   
  
Kirk took a deep breath, his eyes sparking fire. "In future, doctor, you'll attend to your patients in order of strict medical priority, regardless of their nationality. Understood?"   
  
"I hardly thought about it..."   
  
"Bones," Kirk interrupted tiredly, "I think that makes it worse."   
  
"Yes, Captain."   
  
"But he got treated properly eventually?"   
  
"Of course!" McCoy insisted. "I administered the radiation treatment myself. Malidoma and Christie dealt with everything else, and I checked on what they did. But they were... speculating, rather explicitly, on his relationship with Admiral Fleetwood."   
  
"Great."   
  
"I reprimanded them... later. They didn't know he could understand them..."   
  
"Following which, I come along and tell him he's sharing my quarters. You're right. Most of the young men I deal with don't get left in pain for hours while the entire medical staff goes for lunch, then begin to suspect they've been brought aboard so I can screw them."   
  
"Jim... It was a misunderstanding. Just start by explaining that to him."   
  
"It wasn't a misunderstanding, Bones. You said it yourself. It was because he was Russian. There might *also* have been some mix ups, some over-tired and over-worked personnel, and an appalling lack of sensitivity, but..."   
  
"I'm sorry, Captain."   
  
Kirk shook his head. "I was just as stupid myself. I wouldn't even be worrying about all this now if we weren't depending on him to do something for us."   
  
McCoy sat in silence while the captain appeared to think over his next move.   
  
"I suppose I have to ask this. Was Woodie..."   
  
"Certainly not. There's no medical evidence, and I can't believe the admiral would do anything of the kind."   
  
***   
  
Kirk took Chekov into the arboretum. The captain's cabin no longer seemed neutral ground, and Kirk was now sharply aware of the almost unthinking apartheid that some of his crew were imposing on the Russian, moving to give him too much space as they passed him in the corridors, failing to acknowledge him in any way when he entered a room. The two duty botanists, however, presumably because they classed all non-photosynthesising life forms as uniformly inferior, smiled at the youngster and enthusiastically recommended certain plants which were particularly worth viewing.   
  
"Well, let's go look at the Andorian orchids," Kirk suggested. Chekov followed him wordlessly into the sub-tropical zone.   
  
"Have you ever seen anything like that?" Kirk asked when they stopped in front of a bank of blooms that seemed to include every hue discernible with the human eye.   
  
"I have been to Andor," Chekov said. "With the admiral."   
  
"What were you doing with the admiral? How did you meet him?"   
  
"He said he wanted me to stay," Chekov said unhelpfully, looking down with studied indifference at a patch of cadmium yellow flowers right on the edge of the path.   
  
"Stay where, and when?" Kirk asked, feeling his patience evaporate.   
  
Chekov almost smiled. "I hid aboard Victoria. Six... seven years ago." He shrugged. "Dockyard pilot was collecting her. I had switched off internal sensors. No one noticed."   
  
"What happened when they did notice you?"   
  
"Admiral found me. Took me home. He asked foreman if I can work for him when I am eighteen. Foreman says, take him now."   
  
"When you were what? Fourteen? That must be illegal..."   
  
"He had to pay more, I think, and pay local soviet, not CredStat, until I was eighteen."   
  
It suddenly occurred to Kirk to doubt that this was the truth. When would a fourteen year old Russian have had access to a landing field, or...   
  
"You don't believe me? No one is supposed to go away to work until they are eighteen, but it happens often. Particularly girls. Sometimes there is a little payment and parents agree. Sometimes they are just gone."   
  
"Where was the Victoria when you stowed away?" Kirk asked calmly, ignoring the revelation of organised prostitution of minors in CredStat for the moment. There were bound to be allegations, but equally, there must be safeguards. It wouldn't be allowed to happen. No way would it be allowed to happen.   
  
"On landing field at Saint Petersburg. Admiral was visiting old city, Hermitage. Winter Palace. There was fault and he was... he had to leave quickly. I hid in cabin while he tried to fix it. Then he went. I was locked inside. I turned sensors off and pilot didn't check *anything*." Chekov's tone was contemptuous.   
  
"Were you trying to run away?"   
  
"No. I wanted to fly, then they send me home, and beat me." Chekov half smiled to himself, then turned his face up challengingly to Kirk too, smile still in place. "I understood. I run away to fly, and they beat me. They understood too. Everyone understood."   
  
"You'd done this before?"   
  
The Russian nodded.   
  
"But this time, the admiral paid for you to stay? Why?"   
  
"He said, that it is safer to keep me where he can see me."   
  
"Did you object?"   
  
Chekov shook his head. "No."   
  
"You were happy to stay with him? Indefinitely?"   
  
"For as long as I could, yes. Very happy."   
  
"Chekov," Kirk said, a moment later, "I'm sorry that hasn't worked out, but... why can't you be happy to stay here? I'm not offering to be a foster father to you, or whatever the admiral was, but... if we go to Alpha Tyr as planned, we won't return to Earth for at least three months. It could even be a year. If I don't hassle Starfleet to arrange a transfer for you, they'll probably forget you're here. Stay on board."   
  
"I can't do what you want me to do."   
  
"Everyone gets cold feet on their first posting."   
  
"I don't understand you."   
  
"I don't believe you can't do it. I don't understand why you're so convinced you can't..."   
  
"But I *know* I can't do this. And when you know too, all this..." Chekov combed through the air with his fingers as he sought for the right phrases. "All this being nice to me will stop again. I like to be spoken to like this, to be allowed to run the simulations, and to walk around the ship. Perhaps I can even enjoy Lieutenant Sulu trying to be my big brother or something, but I am not stupid, Captain Kirk, and I know I can't sell you what you want to buy from me."   
  
By the time Kirk had drawn breath to respond, Chekov had left.   
  
***   
  
"I tried, sir," Sulu said, despondently. "I talked to him. Or at him. I didn't get off to a very good start this morning, making stupid digs about how much the Russians are in debt..."   
  
"Was that what the credits were about?"   
  
"Yes. He thought he was paying me off... or something. So... I felt pretty bad about what I'd said, and I just tried to accept the money with a good grace. I mean, I thought it might even make things easier, but... He seems to think the collapse of the Russian economy at the end of the twentieth century was a Japanese conspiracy I'm personally responsible for."   
  
'If I had time,' Kirk thought, 'I'd read up an impartial account of the Russian Compromise, a Vulcan one, for preference. Then I'd track down CredStat's records of when and why Chekov came to be with Admiral Fleetwood. And then...'   
  
"Sir..."   
  
"Yes..."   
  
"I don't mean to speak out of turn, but he might be a little sensitive about being where he is. People make jokes, and say stupid things..."   
  
"I know. Get the quartermaster to find him a cabin. Someone else can double up."   
  
"Yes, sir."   
  
***   
  
Shortly thereafter, Hardiman's restraint failed. He asked if the Enterprise would be able to take the medical shipment, or if he should divert another ship for the purpose. It was clear what answer he wanted. Kirk gave it to him.   
  
Kirk knocked at the door directly into Chekov's cabin. He should never have put the kid in the guest suite to start with, but it had seemed the obvious thing to do. Chekov was aboard the Enterprise as a 'family member', technically. Giving him the run of Kirk's suite had more than doubled the space available to him. Kirk had meant well he told himself.   
  
There was no reply. He overrode the lock and went in. The door through to his own cabin stood open, and Chekov was at the computer, concentrating too hard on the screen to notice Kirk's approach from an unexpected direction.   
  
"What are you doing?"   
  
A hand flicked out to kill the power. Chekov shifted back in the chair and looked up at him, resigned.   
  
Kirk groaned inwardly. "Get up." He pointed back to the other cabin. "Pick up your kit."   
  
It took Chekov a few seconds to pile half a dozen items into a duffel that bore the insignia of the Victoria. He picked the bag up and waited for the next order, his eyes round and apprehensive.   
  
"Look, Pavel, let me explain. There are some things you just can't be allowed to do on this ship, for your own safety and other people's. That's why I said you weren't to touch the computer. If you wanted to find out about survivors, you only had to ask, but I can't allow you to hack into the system whenever you want to."   
  
"Then..." Chekov bit off whatever he'd been about to say.   
  
"Go on."   
  
"Then why am I here, where there is computer? Why am I in your cabin?"   
  
"Because you're on board the Enterprise as my guest, and my guests stay here."   
  
"I see."   
  
"But *I* see that it makes you uncomfortable, so I'm putting people out to give you a cabin to yourself. That's just being fixed up now. Okay?"   
  
"Yes. Thank you."   
  
Chekov's reaction seemed genuine enough, Kirk thought, if a little low key.   
  
"Good. Now, I have told Admiral Hardiman that this ship is able to take medical supplies to Alpha Tyr, because I honestly believe that you are a better pilot than most..."   
  
"I am not."   
  
"Right. Well, more to the point, you obviously have no intention of obeying my orders, so I can hardly let you loose on the bridge of this ship." Kirk shook his head at the Russian's sullen expression. "I just want to sort one thing out before we leave here. If this ship got into difficulties and I had to order a general evacuation, would you pilot a shuttle?"   
  
Chekov took a long moment to consider his answer.   
  
"Yes."   
  
***   
  
Commander Steele, the officer in charge of the salvage operation, looked like a woman hanging onto civility by a thread. "Jim, we've got a problem."   
  
'The sooner that shipment is ready and we get underway...' Kirk thought. "Yes, Ella. We'll help if we can. What is it?"   
  
"Everything. I've got so many damaged hulks hanging off the docking arms, some of them in a dangerous condition, I can't begin to make the Starbase safe for my salvage crews. I'm planning to send teams in from the old number nine docking arm, as it's the least damaged, but the only cargo port that's intact is taken up with Woodie's little Vikki. I don't know what she was doing there, but if I can free that up, I can put men and equipment in at three times the rate..."   
  
"So what do you want? The keys? I don't have them."   
  
"She's got more security safeguards than your brig, Jim. They can't blow her clear without wrecking the lock mechanism and losing a couple of hours. You've got Pasha, haven't you?"   
  
"Well, yes. He's here."   
  
"Send him over to me for twenty minutes, Jim. He can put her in a parking orbit out of harm's way. Pretty please?"   
  
Kirk scowled. Someone else who obviously thought Chekov could do no wrong. "He's all yours and welcome, Ella. Shall I send him over in a shuttle..."   
  
"No. He can beam in. Tell your transporter people we have a two person max safe zone on the docking arm with beacons on standard signal. When he's finished, you can pick him up again from the Victoria direct if he takes her clear of all the static."   
  
"Okay."   
  
Fully formed, the idea of offering Chekov the chance to take the Victoria and go seek his fortune, like the unwanted stepson in a fairy tale, materialised in Kirk's imagination. After all, he couldn't honestly claim he was offering the Russian anything back on Earth. It would be a perfectly rational choice, given the Russian's situation. It would probably get Fleetwood's vote. So far as Kirk knew, the admiral's family wouldn't be depending on the yacht's second hand value to keep them in gin and tonic.   
  
Kirk dismissed the temptation and leaned over the intercom. "Lieutenant Sulu?"   
  
"Sir?"   
  
"Where's Chekov now?"   
  
"I showed him to his new quarters as you ordered and left him there, sir. He was trying out how far he could get into the computer with level one clearance and I..." Sulu stopped.   
  
"And what?" Kirk prompted.   
  
"I thought he might want to send a message to his family that he's okay, so I gave him access to my mail account. I don't think he can do any harm..."   
  
"I think if he wanted to do any harm, he wouldn't need your permission to get in there and do it," Kirk agreed bitterly.   
  
"No. Well, he seemed happy enough."   
  
"Fetch him down to the transporter room for me. I'll meet you there."   
  
***   
  
Chekov was standing by the pads, his duffel over his shoulder.   
  
"He seemed to think you were throwing him off the ship, Captain," Sulu explained. "And I wasn't sure what you wanted. I'll get him to stow his stuff in a locker..."   
  
Kirk hesitated. Here was Chekov, all ready to go. The Victoria, if she was fully fuelled, could take him almost anywhere in the sector, including to a handful of non-Federation worlds that wouldn't ask to see his papers; worlds where someone would sooner or later mug him in an ill-lit spaceport alley, or hire him to run drugs, or slaves, or...   
  
"Let him take it with him, if it makes him happy." The captain turned away to inform Kyle of the party's destination. The co-ordinates arranged, Kirk crossed over to the Russian. "Apparently the Victoria is sitting at a cargo lock that they need for urgent salvage operations. They want you to move her."   
  
Chekov nodded. "I can't move her to personnel dock. The docking ring is damaged."   
  
"That doesn't matter. I think they're clearing all the remaining ships away from the Starbase. Commander Steele wants you to put her in a parking orbit, out of harm's way. Apparently she's security coded and they've no one else who can move her."   
  
The Russian nodded again. Unsurprised, unmoved. Had he seen the opportunity to run? Was he just trying not to arouse anyone's suspicions?   
  
"And I'm sending Lieutenant Sulu with you. There's still a good deal of junk flying around, and radiation levels that might distort your sensor readings. Local control won't be able to help you. They may not even be able to see you. I think you'll find it easier with a second pair of eyes."   
  
"And after she is in orbit?" Chekov asked, neutrally.   
  
"Inform local control of her orbit parameters, reconfigure any security locks to codes you can give to Commander Steele for forwarding to the Admiral's family or their agents, and let us know you're ready to beam back. Everyone's going to be much too busy to even notice she's sitting there for a few days."   
  
"Yes, sir," Chekov assented, dutiful as one of Kirk's officers.   
  
Kirk looked at the Russian hard, trying to read his mind. Chekov wasn't giving anything away. The risks might be bad, but Kirk knew what he'd do in the young Russian's place. "Oh, and Sulu, apparently there's still a problem with interference affecting the transporters. To be on the safe side, I want you to transport back one at a time after you park the Victoria. You'll have to let Chekov close down so you'll come first. Understood?"   
  
Sulu blinked at him. "Yes, sir."   
  
"Are you locked on to their safe zone, Scotty?" Kirk asked as the two men mounted the pad. The engineer gave him a preoccupied nod. "Aye, no problem there, Captain."   
  
Scott pulled the lever for transport and was immediately bombarded with flashing lights and screeching alarms.   
  
Kirk resisted the temptation to demand explanations. The engineer was fully occupied in taking manual control of the process.   
  
Scott finally let out a sigh of relief. "They made it, Captain. The power to the signal amplifiers must have gone. We nearly lost them." He hit his intercom. "Lieutenant Uhura, can you get me someone on the docking arm. They've a problem..."   
  
Kirk stared at the transporter pad. The debris and residual radiation always made operating in salvage situations hazardous. Maybe he should have thought twice about letting them go...   
  
***   
  
Unaware of their brush with mortality, Chekov and Sulu rematerialised. There was no clue that anyone on the arm had noticed the power problem, but the chaos into which he'd transported sent a ripple of panic through the helmsman. It was cold. There was a bitter tang of burnt synthetics. The artificial gravity was operating at less than fifty percent and a few degrees out of perpendicular with the deck. This wasn't a good place to be.   
  
Sulu shook off his unease. There was evidence of order being restored. Wreckage had been cleared from their beam in site, which was hemmed with transporter amplifiers. A Starfleet yeoman stood at a field communications centre. Technicians were moving with haste that made them look almost comical in the low gravity. A worried looking woman glared at them and gestured them away from the safe zone, as if she was expecting another arrival.   
  
The lieutenant looked round for an authority figure and spotted a burly civilian in very dirty Starbase coveralls.   
  
"We've come to move the Victoria," he announced when the man looked up at them.   
  
"Two minutes. We're just linking in an emergency power supply to that section. One forty nine, Carter?"   
  
"One forty... five," a disembodied voice replied.   
  
"Go. Pasha, I'm glad you're okay. I'm sorry about the admiral. We all are. Starfleet taking care of you?" He spared a sideways glance at the helmsman as he asked.   
  
"Yes," Chekov replied blandly. "This is Lieutenant Sulu."   
  
Sulu shot a suspicious look at the Russian, who suddenly seemed to have almost no discernible accent.   
  
"Pleased to meet you." The civilian made no offer to shake hands. All ten of his fingers were busy on a couple of keyboards.   
  
"Mister Drake," Chekov continued hesitantly. "I am not sure I can move Victoria. But if I can't, then I can manually undock if someone will use the grab to secure her."   
  
Drake's hands stopped their furious typing. "She looks okay to me. She would have been sheltered from the main blast on this side of the arm. You shouldn't have any problem."   
  
"Why didn't you mention this to the captain?" Sulu demanded.   
  
Chekov ignored him. "She was damaged before I docked her. That is why I chose the cargo dock. Access is easier. But now she's a problem for you..."   
  
"Hell, don't worry about that," Drake said easily. "You weren't hurt were you?"   
  
"No." Chekov shook his head. "I am not sure how bad the damage is."   
  
Drake had apparently reached a lull in his frantic activity. "Well, if your friend here can operate the grabs, and you trust him not to scratch her, then do that, but she'll have to be towed away from here eventually. Help yourselves. There's power to the grab arm for now. I can't promise how long. You be careful now." The engineer looked sternly at Sulu. "We don't have any backup out there. If you break his line or anything, Lieutenant, I don't know how we'll get him back. And you, Pasha, no showing off, and make sure you *use* a bloody line. You be damned careful!"   
  
Chekov turned to Sulu. "Can you do that? Hold the ship while I return through the airlock?"   
  
"You're going to space walk back here?" Sulu asked. "Pavel, why didn't you tell the captain the Victoria was disabled?"   
  
Chekov shrugged. "He only wants me to move her. I can do that." He turned away abruptly, and Sulu followed him, assuming he was heading for the correct dock. There was a keypad and palm reader by the hexagonal port where Chekov halted. They looked dead.   
  
"We'll have to ask your friend Drake to power up the port..." Sulu began.   
  
Chekov snorted contemptuously and swung his duffel off his shoulder. He pulled out a remote. "No problem. Mister Drake said two minutes."   
  
The indicators on the port controls lit and a moment later the iris of the hatch began to contract.   
  
Sulu stood in the narrow access way and stared, dumbstruck, at the scene which met his eyes.   
  
The whole compartment was smoke blackened, streaked with iridescent residues where more chemically reactive components had burned. One monitor was smashed. The panels that covered the walls and ceilings were punctured in half a dozen places. The clearsteel viewscreen was crazed. As Sulu stepped forward he almost tripped over a heat blister on the deck. Chekov climbed down to the pilot's seat and began wiping smuts from the control panel with his sleeve.   
  
"What happened?" Sulu stepped past him and touched the inner surface of the viewscreen wonderingly. "This panel should be as tough as the Enterprise's hull."   
  
"Overload," Chekov said succinctly. He cursed quietly to himself.   
  
Of course, the navigation readouts which were superimposed on the pure 'window' function of the viewscreen were carried in a micro-layer of optical tracking which had melted. The clearsteel itself was intact. Sulu heaved a sigh of relief. But still, the optical tracking should never have been overloaded to that extent...   
  
"What caused it?"   
  
"E.m. pulse," Chekov said. "When Starbase generator went critical."   
  
"Where the hell were you when it blew?"   
  
Chekov had coaxed a few lights into life and seemed not to dare look away from them in case they went out again.   
  
"Didn't you have shields up? Didn't you hear the warnings to get the hell out of there?" Sulu looked hopelessly around the cockpit. "You're wasting your time, Pavel. Every piece of circuitry on board will have been vaporised."   
  
Chekov did look up now, angry. "No. All manual control is isolated, solid state. Also docking circuits are solid state. That is how I docked."   
  
"But... but Pavel, why did you dock? If you still had control, why didn't you just *go*? There could have been secondary melt downs, or fuel tank ruptures, or..."   
  
"I thought I can maybe take off survivors," Chekov said matter-of-factly. "But the arm was less damaged than I thought. It was safer to stay here in reinforced modules." He suddenly hit a switch that extinguished the little embers of light on his panel. "Power reserves are drained. There is leak from battery. This ship is dead. You are right. Everything is gone." He folded his hands in his lap and bowed his head.   
  
Sulu felt like an intruder at a funeral.   
  
He came and stood beside Chekov. "Captain Kirk meant for you to take her. Did you realise that?"   
  
The Russian looked up at him. "Take her? Take Victoria? He thought I would steal her?"   
  
"No. Don't misunderstand me. He thought you deserved to take her and make a fresh start for yourself."   
  
Chekov shook his head, not angry, as Sulu feared he might be, just puzzled. "He sent you to stop me, then?"   
  
"No. He sent me to let you. To... to help you."   
  
Sulu's words slid off the Russian as if they had never been spoken. "We have to move her," Chekov said without emotion.   
  
Sulu laid his hand on the back of Chekov's seat and felt charred fabric crumble under his fingers. "What happened in here, Pavel? It looks like someone took a phaser to it. What happened?"   
  
He found he was holding his breath, waiting in the unnatural silence of the dead ship for the Russian to answer. Probably Chekov would never tell him, and no one else would ever ask. The Victoria would be just one more piece of salvage. Had frustration at his lack of status finally made Chekov turn on a symbol of luxury, of his owner's power... Maybe the admiral had been aboard at the time. To someone with a cool head, what a perfect opportunity it would be for revenge...   
  
"There were e.m. anomalies. Fireballs."   
  
"But... fireballs only occur within a few metres of a warp bubble fracture."   
  
Chekov, Sulu realised eventually, wasn't interested in enlarging on what he'd said.   
  
"And your shields... You lost your shields?" Sulu tried to go back and piece together a sequence of events that would explain the particular types of damage he could see around him, a sequence that preferably didn't include first degree murder. "They knew the warp generator was in trouble, so they ordered all ships to leave. Right?"   
  
Chekov nodded.   
  
"And you were already bringing the Victoria in, or just taking her out. You were close by, and able to manoeuvre. Is that right?"   
  
"Yes."   
  
"And..." Struggling to make sense of it, Sulu suddenly saw the light. "You went back for something, or someone."   
  
"Yes."   
  
"But the collapsing magnetic shielding on the generator was creating localised e.m. pulses _ fireballs _ already, strong enough to take out your shields, and then your instruments, until the final pulse overloaded all your main circuitry."   
  
"Yes."   
  
"The radiation should have killed you..."   
  
"Yes."   
  
"I mean, this ship must have structural shielding in the hull. Does she? Does the Victoria have structural shielding?" Surely, Sulu thought, the yacht wasn't big enough.   
  
"No. Then I was... I was running away." Chekov turned in his chair, away from the helmsman, and pointed towards the stern of the ship. "Her warp engines are there, between the explosion. They acted like shield."   
  
It was nervousness that broke up the Russian's Standard, like static, Sulu realised. He'd been within metres of a potential core breach and when he'd finally made a break for it, he thought he'd been 'running away'.   
  
"What did you go back for?"   
  
"No one. I was too late. I couldn't find the way. I couldn't..." Chekov choked into silence, then began again more calmly. "I took too long. I could not steer. The navigational beacons were malfunction, also the sensors and I did not realise, then it was too late. I must use visual, but correct procedure so close to the station..."   
  
Chekov ran his fingers over the console. Heat had distorted the lettering, pitted the plastic. Sulu couldn't imagine how Chekov had found his way back to the docking arm, let alone located a cargo hatch and closed with it.   
  
"Pavel," he said as gently as he could, "you were trying to do the impossible. Did you know what might have happened, what problems you were flying straight into?"   
  
"But I had to go back. I could not leave him."   
  
"The admiral?"   
  
"Yes."   
  
Sulu moved around to where he could see the Russian's face. It was screwed up against the threat of tears. "Pavel..."   
  
"I... was frightened, very frightened. I must not be frightened..."   
  
"You panicked?"   
  
"Yes, I panicked."   
  
"I don't think you're being fair to yourself..."   
  
"So I cannot be pilot. It is easy to be pilot when nothing is wrong. But when it is difficult, I panicked."   
  
Sulu looked around the interior of the Victoria again. It seemed to him that Chekov had done more than duty, or love, could require, only retreating long after most people would have judged the situation clearly hopeless. If he'd really panicked at any point, he wouldn't be here worrying about it.   
  
"Pavel, you should tell Captain Kirk..."   
  
"I hate Captain Kirk," Chekov said, sounding somehow more desolate about it than venomous.   
  
"Why?"   
  
"He thinks I am thief." Chekov laughed. "Of course."   
  
"Of course? What do you mean?"   
  
"Because he is thief himself."   
  
"What? I don't understand you."   
  
"He thinks only what people can give him, or do for him. Like you. To you, I am just six credits fifty. To Captain Kirk, I am pilot when he needs pilot. Before and after I am nothing."   
  
"He... he thought you'd stolen something?"   
  
"This ship. The admiral's ship. The admiral has a wife, and he has sons, grandchildren. I am not a thief."   
  
"No, but... I think..." Sulu stopped. He didn't know what he'd thought. When you looked at it like that, Kirk had been positively encouraging Chekov to make off with a few million credits worth of someone else's luxury yacht.   
  
Chekov wiped his face dry with his sleeve. "He never wanted anything from me, not even to say 'thank you'. And his wife too, what can I give her? And Peter Drake, I help him sometimes, but he doesn't say, you can't help me today so go away, don't come here."   
  
The lieutenant sat in silence. He'd even wondered if Chekov had murdered the admiral. What could he say?   
  
"I... I'm sorry."   
  
"For what?"   
  
"That you feel like that. It's really not true. The admiral wasn't... wasn't so very different from anyone else. The captain has to think of the safety of the ship first, but if you gave him a chance, if you'd done what he asked, you'd have seen, he's..."   
  
"*If* I did what he asked."   
  
"Well, yes, but... the Enterprise is a ship, not a... a family or something. Everyone is there to do a job."   
  
Chekov shrugged. "I can't do this job. So he lets me to steal Victoria and run away. Very kind. Peter Drake asks me to move her. I can do that, so I will move her."   
  
Sulu straightened. Chekov was right about that, at least. They were probably holding up a whole chain of salvage manoeuvres while he tried, and failed, to counsel the Russian. Maybe he could persuade Drake to offer Chekov a temporary refuge, or an introduction to a commercial ship's master who wouldn't mind taking a competent technician with no papers. On the other hand, Sulu now knew that, guilt apart, Chekov could probably navigate a paper kite through a meteor storm and come out in one piece. Maybe if Captain Kirk could somehow present the situation differently, not in terms of just wanting a pilot, but...   
  
But what else was there to say? Sulu didn't feel he was just a round peg in a round hole of Starfleet's making. He felt he was valued as a person, that his happiness mattered, not just his ability to fly the ship. Unfortunately, he couldn't honestly say why he felt that, let alone point to a concrete reason why Chekov should feel it too.   
  
"Come on, then. Is there enough power to turn off the security locks? Then we can move this lady from inside the arm. How do we do that?" Sulu reached a hand out to the switches in front of the navigator.   
  
Chekov nodded. He pulled the remote from his duffel again and set to work.   
  
"The admiral appears to have been in semi-retirement for the last two years," Spock reported. "But he was not idle."   
  
"What was he doing?" Kirk asked, wondering why Spock found that noteworthy. Surely retired Vulcans were not idle. Maybe they died at their desks.   
  
"He was carrying out a campaign of correspondence and personal lobbying for the amendment, or preferably the repeal of the Compromise of 2005. He had not made any significant progress, however. He gained access to many influential people but to no effect. He was no longer the powerful and energetic individual of earlier years. He tired easily. Several visits to Earth were cut short because of health problems, and even a transit accident."   
  
Kirk frowned at the unusual concept. "I know I've asked this before, but why didn't he just buy Chekov out, if it meant so much to him?"   
  
"I have discovered a letter, from Admiral Nogura, warning Fleetwood that a 'political action' of that nature would lead to calls for his full retirement from Starfleet."   
  
"But if he felt so strongly about it..."   
  
"Once retired, and by implication relegated to the categories of 'the elderly, confused and quite possibly eccentric'..."   
  
"No one would think that of Woodie. He had a mind like a razor."   
  
"I am quoting from Admiral Fleetwood's reply to Admiral Nogura. He was convinced that attempts were being made to discredit him. Had he paid for Chekov's freedom, he thought it likely that a scandal would have been manufactured, characterising him as an elderly yet rapacious homosexual, or worse, in his opinion, accusing Chekov of being..."   
  
"That's ridiculous. No one who knew Woodie would..."   
  
"But in political terms, hardly anyone *did* know the admiral. He did not say this himself, but from a review of events, I think it entirely possible that attempts were made on his life."   
  
Kirk stared at the Vulcan. "Who would do that?"   
  
Spock shrugged.   
  
"Come on, Spock, you can't hypothesise a crime without a criminal. Why would anyone want to go to those lengths to maintain the existence of CredStat? It's never begun to pay off what the Russian state owed at the start. You've seen the problem I had with Chekov. You can't force the Russians to work, and you have to feed, clothe and house them whether they work or not..."   
  
"That puzzled me initially," Spock admitted. "There have been allegations made that Russians are used to test pharmaceuticals and other synthetic substances, and that prostitution occurs..."   
  
"I'd never heard that," Kirk objected quickly, mentally adding the caveat *until today*.   
  
"On Earth, news broadcasters are subject to commercial pressure, while on Vulcan, the principle of non-interference restricts anyone who might disapprove of the situation. The products of several Terran manufacturers are not imported as a result of the perceived moral problem."   
  
"It still doesn't add up. Commercial drug trials use cloned tissue, and..."   
  
"What is the one resource on Earth which is finite, Captain, despite technical advances at the margin, and the one which cannot be supplemented by imports?"   
  
"Well." Kirk had a horribly guilty feeling that this was suddenly making sense. "Land."   
  
"Quite. The Russian sphere of influence in 2005 occupied an area of twenty two point four oh three million square kilometres. Since 2008, ninety three point one per cent of that area has been leased to, among others, the Mishuno Corporation and the New Tokyo Bank. The annual rent represents less than point zero zero three percent of the outstanding CredStat debt. The financial summaries of those organisations do not make explicit the profits that are earned by subleasing, by agriculture and by mineral extraction."   
  
"How did you find all this out?" Kirk demanded angrily.   
  
"From the public record. Some facts I was already aware of. I assumed you were too. Jim, there is no way you could be dismissed as senile, and your resignation or retirement from Starfleet would attract immense publicity."   
  
"I'm a starship captain, not a politician."   
  
"The politicians have failed, or maybe they have not even tried. If not you, Jim, then who else can do this? Doctor McCoy has said to me, that a man will not beat another man's dog. It seems to me that the entire human race, or the free part of it, is conspiring to abuse the Russian people."   
  
Rhetoric, as usual, left Kirk relatively unmoved, but a memory of Pavel flinching away from the belt in his hands struck home.   
  
"You can't put something like this straight overnight, Spock," he parried half-heartedly.   
  
"But you can begin."   
  
***   
  
Sulu turned away from the waldoes and realised that Chekov had gone. He took a deep breath as he considered what he should do. The Victoria was securely anchored to a 'tender' point, designed for a ship that could use its own transporters or a shuttle of some type to transfer cargo and personnel on and off the station. Chekov had shut down everything aboard and input an access code that could be left with whatever remained of the port authority for Starbase 4.   
  
They'd overheard Drake and his team referring to the proposed dismembering of the damaged arm. Chekov could hardly intend to stay here. Apart from the salvage technicians, living in prefabricated dormitories, there was *no one* here any more. The surviving inhabitants of Starbase 4 had limped home to Earth, to Vulcan, to Andor and a dozen other worlds. If the Russian was hoping to contact friends, he would be disappointed.   
  
The mood Chekov was in, he'd consider anything rather than go back to the Enterprise, Sulu decided. He headed for the point where they'd beamed aboard, the desire to hurry making him awkward in the low gravity. Drake was still busy at the control console.   
  
"Where's Chekov?"   
  
"Gone," Blake said shortly.   
  
"Gone where?" Sulu demanded.   
  
"With one of the guys from the Mishuno team. They lost a lot of their people. Offered him a job piloting a maintenance shuttle around. He accepted."   
  
"But..." Sulu began.   
  
Blake turned his back on his control panel. "Listen to me, Lieutenant. I'm sure you mean well. I'm sure Starfleet means well. I'm sure you mean to send Pasha home safe and sound. But he doesn't want to go back to Earth with Starfleet or anyone else. I've watched him around Starfleet people, and when the admiral wasn't there, most of them treated him like dirt. Now, I know the admiral signed something to say he wouldn't let Pasha up and go, but the admiral's dead, God rest him, and there's nothing holding Pasha now, so..."   
  
"He went with someone from Mishuno? Someone Japanese?"   
  
Drake gave him an impatient scowl. "No. It was Danny Cocker, their maintenance manager here. He's European, or at least he looks it. Why? What the hell difference does it make?"   
  
"Pavel wouldn't have gone with anyone he thought was Japanese," Sulu said, not sure why this scenario worried him so much.   
  
"Well, he's here with you, isn't he?"   
  
"Where exactly did they go, Mister Drake?"   
  
Drake jerked his head towards one of the three corridors leading out of the hub. "They're cutting out some equipment down there for salvage. Cocker took Pasha with him."   
  
"He has to come back to the Enterprise with me," Sulu said firmly.   
  
"Why?" Drake demanded. "What's the problem? Look, guy, if you're simply doing your job, I suggest you go back and tell your captain Pasha just vanished. What's the harm?"   
  
Sulu hesitated. The guy from Mishuno would just be exploiting Chekov's skills. But then, wasn't that exactly what Kirk wanted to do? What *was* the problem?   
  
Sulu set off into the corridor. "I'm not sure you should go down there," Blake yelled after him. "They're starting demolition right now."   
  
Sulu ignored him. The corridor became darker as the emergency lights were spaced more widely. He couldn't hear any sounds of anyone working. Then, suddenly, he walked into brilliant white illumination in the adjacent hub.   
  
A middle aged man, European looking, as Drake had claimed, was leaning against the twisted framework of a trashed control console. Two younger men were holding Chekov. They were wearing Mishuno badges, and phasers. And they were unmistakably Japanese. Sulu wasn't armed. This wasn't supposed to be that kind of situation.   
  
The Russian's left eye was closed and his nose was bleeding profusely.   
  
"Lieutenant," Cocker said pleasantly. "We weren't expecting you yet."   
  
Sulu's training, and a year of observing James Kirk, cut in and kept him reacting smoothly. "I'm sorry. Was I disturbing something?" He realised that Chekov was looking at him, seeing all his expectations fulfilled.   
  
"Not at all. Just tidying up this loose end. I really don't know whether to be mad at him or not, you know? It's a damned shame to see so much Mishuno technology atomised but... the Federation will pay us to replace it."   
  
The horror behind what the man had casually said hit Sulu like a shock wave. The destruction of Starbase 4 wasn't the result of a malfunction, an accident. It was sabotage. "That's... true," he said after a moment, striving for neutrality.   
  
Obviously he didn't quite achieve it. "Did you lose friends here, Lieutenant?" Cocker asked. "I'm sorry. We recalled as many people as we could without causing ripples."   
  
As many as they could? What, half a dozen senior Mishuno technicians? Or did Mishuno have its tentacles so deep into Starfleet that it could move Fleet personnel around at will? It certainly seemed that Cocker had been expecting at least one bad apple to show up around now.   
  
"If I did," Sulu said silkily, cold, controlled anger driving him now, "I know who to blame."   
  
"Quite," Cocker agreed. "But Fleetwood is dead. Of course, if he hadn't been so damned hot for security, we could have picked him off away from the Starbase, him and the Russian both. Still... What's done is done, eh?"   
  
Sulu nodded. "And what still needs to be done..."   
  
"Since Commander Steele blew it, yeah. We're taking out the gravity generators in the next module," Cocker explained obligingly. "This pup'll misunderstand an order, wind up on the wrong side of a bulkhead. Salvage is notoriously dangerous." The man gestured to his henchmen. "Take him through. If he gives you trouble, be careful, don't use phasers, just in case there's an autopsy. Who knows, Lady Fleetwood might have been as sweet on him as her old man was."   
  
Chekov let himself be dragged through a wide hatch into a large compartment where two massive, still purring grav units were visible. It was quite reasonable that they should be a salvage priority. If nothing else, they could be used to manipulate the wreckage and, in time, to manoeuvre the framework of the new Starbase into place. But they were huge. The plan must be to remove the whole outer skin of the compartment and lift them out. Sulu and Cocker followed. The Mishuno name was emblazoned proudly on the casings of the units.   
  
Sulu's eyes scoured the cavernous space for weapons, shelter, e.v. suits, comm equipment...   
  
"Just a couple more minutes," Cocker explained. "We're priming the bolts holding the outer skin with explosive charges."   
  
Chekov was just standing there, waiting for his two minutes to be over. There were two more Mishuno technicians working along the walls. They were Japanese again, but unarmed. Presumably not from the 'internal security' department of Mishuno, or whatever polite name they gave to their strong arm division. Still, would Cocker send them away before he made the final arrangements for Chekov's death?   
  
Sulu knew he could walk out of here, a few metres down the corridor, and use his communicator to call for help. He also knew that Chekov could be dead before a security team was mustered and beamed in two hundred yards or more away from them. And he knew that any more direct attempt to intercede on the Russian's behalf could lead to instant death for both of them.   
  
He could call for the Enterprise to catch Chekov in the transporter the moment the module was opened to space... if it weren't for the residual radiation from the explosion. And the person Cocker had been expecting could be walking down the corridor right now...   
  
Still scanning the compartment for inspiration, Sulu met Chekov's good eye. It stared at him indifferently.   
  
Sulu could still walk away from this. He didn't owe Chekov anything. He hadn't been around in 1998, or 2005, or two days ago when Mishuno killed Fleetwood and three thousand other innocents...   
  
Just then, the two technicians finished. Slipping their tools back into the multitude of pockets in their overalls, they nodded with traditional Japanese respect to Cocker and left the module.   
  
The other two, the Mishuno heavies, now split, one retaining a lazy hold on Chekov, the other walking towards Cocker, which would bring him past Sulu first...   
  
And the man holding Chekov had been told not to use his phaser, so he'd hesitate... If Chekov had been Starfleet trained, or more to the point, if he'd had any reason to co-operate with anything Sulu did, this was their opening.   
  
Chekov wouldn't help. Helping might save his own life, but only if he realised quickly enough what Sulu intended. And he had no reason to believe Sulu intended him any good at all.   
  
Only there was no other choice.   
  
"Pasha!"   
  
Sulu grabbed the phaser from the man's belt as the bastard passed him, swinging to train it on Cocker in the same movement. He waited for Chekov's remaining guard to shoot him in the back.   
  
It didn't happen.   
  
"Get over by that column, both of you!" he ordered sharply.   
  
"What the fuck are you doing, Muro?"   
  
"I'm not Muro." Sulu raised the phaser an inch, increasing the threat that he'd use it. Cocker and his minion retreated.   
  
Sulu heard the whine of a phaser behind him. He resisted the instinct to turn and look.   
  
"Pasha?"   
  
He didn't need to risk looking, he decided. Cocker's face announced what was happening clearly enough.   
  
"He shot him! Cold blooded bastard. Look, whoever the fuck you are, this crazy Russian is going to kill us all."   
  
"I stunned him," Chekov said stonily, "but I can kill him if you want."   
  
"No, don't. Come over here with me, Pasha," Sulu ordered.   
  
The phaser sang again and both the remaining Mishuno men fell to the deck, their collapse made almost comical by the low gravity and its misalignment.   
  
"Listen," Chekov said, coming up close to the lieutenant. "You don't know that in Russia, to call someone Pasha, this is for friends only, good friends."   
  
"I had to get your attention. I didn't have time to explain."   
  
"I know."   
  
"I had to make you think you might trust me."   
  
"Yes. I understand," Chekov said flatly, almost impatiently.   
  
Sulu couldn't work him out. "All right. I won't call you Pasha again. Okay?"   
  
Chekov looked at him for a moment, then nodded.   
  
"I'm going to call for Security from the Enterprise. It'll take them a few minutes to get here."   
  
Sulu flicked open his communicator and adjusted it for the blast of static. "Enterprise? Lieutenant..."   
  
"Sulu?" a voice responded, sounding almost startled. "Hold please. The captain just asked me to get you. Captain..."   
  
"Lieutenant, are you still with Chekov?"   
  
"Yes, sir..."   
  
"Where?"   
  
"On the arm still, sir, and..."   
  
"Get him back to the transporter pad now. Immediately. His life's in danger. If he doesn't want to come, tell him we'll talk about it when he gets here. I don't mean him any harm. Do you think you can convince him of that?"   
  
"A Mishuno official and two of his henchmen just tried to kill Chekov, but he's okay. We're both okay. I think we should get our security people over here, just to be in the way of any kind of cover up, Captain."   
  
There was a moment of surprised silence. "There won't be a cover up, Lieutenant. I suggested to Admiral Nogura that Mishuno, among others, had a motive to silence Fleetwood. When Nogura raised the matter with their President, he was told not to ask questions. He's in the process of making a statement to the Federation council. Copies are being handed to all the major news agencies simultaneously. I've had Commander Steele taken into custody for the attempted murder of yourself and Pavel Chekov. If Mishuno are still out to kill Chekov, it's because no one's countermanded the order. But get him back here, just to be safe."   
  
***   
  
The rec room was crowded but oddly quiet when Sulu walked in two hours later. A few faces turned to look at him, a few seemed to be studiously ignoring his arrival.   
  
"Hi, everyone," the lieutenant said, loudly. He caught Uhura's eye and she gave him a watery smile.   
  
"Where's the Russian?" Craigie asked from over by the food servitors.   
  
"Why?" Sulu demanded. Chekov was with the captain, talking to Starfleet investigators, Sulu supposed, since Starfleet was by default the only law operating among the remains of Starbase 4.   
  
"I owe him an apology," Craigie said. "Apparently your friends at Mishuno had private detectives spying on him and the admiral, trying to find evidence that Fleetwood was... you know. Only they didn't... find any, I mean."   
  
"Where did you hear that?" Sulu said. They were talking across the width of the big room and everyone else was silent now.   
  
"On the updates." Craigie gestured at the big screen on one of the walls. It wasn't often used. Among so diverse a crew, there weren't many events that commanded everyone's attention. The collapse of the three hundred year old conspiracy would affect almost everyone, one way or another. "Seems he was the only Russian not getting screwed."   
  
Sulu nodded. Publicity was probably the best way forward, although some griefs might be easier to bear in private. And he hoped people would be more tactful when Chekov was around.   
  
"I don't have friends at Mishuno," Sulu said. He sat down at a table, as if that closed the matter. There were maybe fifteen Japanese nationals on board, many more individuals with some links with that country. It wasn't always very clear where people's roots lay, if they didn't choose to make an issue of it. He just hoped there wasn't going to be any kind of backlash.   
  
"You had a Mishuno scholarship to the Academy," Uhura reminded him.   
  
Sulu turned and looked at her. "What? What are you suggesting?" He stood up again and slowly surveyed everyone in the room. Some met his gaze, none hostile, exactly, all... uncomfortable. He walked slowly over to the low raised area in one corner of the room and turned to face everyone.   
  
"I'm not suggesting anything, Sulu," Uhura said. "I don't suppose you did anything to get that scholarship but pass a few school exams. My father works for UEI, if it comes to that."   
  
United Extractive Industries: Sulu had spent half an hour researching the exploitation of Russia in the ship's library. UEI, originally a North American/South African mining conglomerate, leased mining rights in Russian territory from Mishuno.   
  
"Everyone here who was raised on Earth probably benefited somehow from the Compromise," Farrell said from his seat near to Uhura. Compromise, Sulu realised, was going to be a dirty word from now on.   
  
"But this is about Starbase 4, isn't it?" Sulu said evenly. "Not about Russia at all."   
  
"I never even thought about Russia," a young ensign called out. "It all happened so long ago. It wasn't something we did. Sure wasn't something the people on Starbase 4 did."   
  
There was a murmur of agreement.   
  
"UEI didn't wipe out a Starbase," another voice stated. Sulu couldn't see who'd said it.   
  
"If everyone here had thought about Russia, once in a while, it wouldn't have done Mishuno a damn bit of good killing Admiral Fleetwood, would it? So who are we going to blame?" Sulu demanded. "Some centuries dead financiers and politicians, who saw a chance to line their own pockets and make their voters rich, or Admiral Fleetwood, for realising it sucked when... when a bright Russian kid crossed his path, and for being prepared to say something about it? Or all the people he talked to who found it easier not to listen? The Mishuno team that rigged the explosion or every last stockholder and pensioner who took the profits from robbing the Russians blind? Are you just so desperate to avoid admitting you share any of the blame for this that you want me to take responsibility because Mishuno paid my tuition fees when I was sixteen?"   
  
"You took the Russian's money," an engineer, Hickstead, pointed out.   
  
Sulu shot him a blistering look, then realised that the lieutenant was feeding him a line.   
  
"Yeah. Does everyone know that? I teased the kid about how much he owed me, how much he owed everyone. So he paid up. It took that to make me realise he was... he was... Well, that he was human, I suppose. How about the rest of you?"   
  
There was a thick silence.   
  
"So it's okay with you that we come out here wearing our idealism on our fucking sleeves, founding the Federation with all its charters of sentient rights, when the whole first interstellar space project was financed out of slavery under another name? Well, it's not okay with me. I'm shamed that Mishuno bought my education by denying Chekov his. That I ate well while he probably went hungry. And I dare say I got decent healthcare and he got sick. Well, all I can do now is vote to put it right as fast as that can happen, and I don't just mean voting in elections. I mean voting with my savings, with my influence on my family and my friends, and starting with how I treat the only Russian there is out here."   
  
Sulu had already turned to stamp angrily off the stage when the clapping started. It swelled to a thunder of applause as he pushed between the tables, hands reaching out to thump him on the back as he passed.   
  
He hesitated, unsure where to go next. He was still furious with Uhura for dragging up the stupid scholarship thing. He glanced across at her, saw her hugging Hickstead. Damn woman had set him up.   
  
"If you don't watch out, Sulu my boy," a hydroponicist said softly from the seat next to where he'd halted, "they'll be nominating you for UFP President one of these days."   
  
Sulu recalled Chekov's roundabout declaration that they weren't friends. "There were two hundred and eleven million Russians at the last count. I don't see them voting anyone Japanese onto the council in the next few hundred generations, let alone as candidate for the presidency."   
  
"Is something happening in here?"   
  
Sulu almost jumped at the sound of Kirk's voice. The captain was standing in the doorway, with Chekov hovering at his shoulder. The Russian looked intimidated by the crowd.   
  
"No, sir. Everyone's just a little shocked at the news."   
  
Kirk frowned at the room full of his crew. They were all talking quietly to one another now, actively avoiding staring at the new arrivals. "Take Mister Chekov along to the Senior Officers' Mess, please. He'll be accepting a commission in Starfleet tomorrow, subject to medicals and so forth."   
  
Sulu was so surprised he forgot to answer for a moment. "Oh, yes, sir. Of course. Immediately."   
  
"I expect he'll have some questions for you about what he's letting himself in for. And he'll need to see the quartermaster for permanent accommodation, uniform and pay details, as soon as he's eaten."   
  
Sulu could feel a huge, uncontrollable grin appearing on his face. "Yes, sir."   
  
Kirk led the two younger men out into the corridor. "Is there going to be any resentment about this? It's a little unorthodox, giving someone a commission for a bridge position without an Academy background, apart from any other... prejudices. But he's certainly qualified, practically and academically."   
  
Sulu glanced at the new ensign, to see how he'd react to that suggestion. He couldn't read Chekov's expression. "I think everyone will do all they can to make sure he fits in easily. And if he wants tuition in any area, on Starfleet procedures or the theoretical stuff, I'll be happy to help."   
  
Kirk smiled approvingly. "Okay, Chekov?"   
  
"Yes, sir."   
  
***   
  
Chekov quietly followed Sulu along the corridor towards the smaller dining room. Once there, Sulu watched him select the standard menu for the day.   
  
"I'm surprised you're staying. I'm glad, of course, but I didn't expect it. You could go home."   
  
"I am coward."   
  
"What?" Sulu punched up a cup of coffee for himself and followed Chekov over to a table. "What do you mean?"   
  
"It will be difficult for a long time. It will be slow, people will be impatient, and angry. I am happier to be here."   
  
"In Starfleet? A few hours ago, you hated us, particularly the captain. Have you forgiven us that quickly?"   
  
"No," Chekov said flatly. He was looking at his meal as if having second thoughts about it. "But we can all start again. Captain Kirk says this."   
  
"Well, that's... practical, I guess."   
  
"Yes."   
  
Sulu took a swig of coffee. "Good. I'm glad you have all that sorted out."   
  
"He apologised," Chekov said, clearly hearing the doubt in Sulu's voice. "And I accepted."   
  
"That's... good." Sulu could imagine it: it would take more steel than Chekov probably possessed to resist the captain if he'd made up his mind to apologise. For a moment, Sulu envied Kirk his charm. He could do with a little of it now himself.   
  
"You don't have to stay with me if you don't wish," Chekov said after a moment. "I have no questions, and I know Starfleet procedures like a new Academy graduate, I think. The admiral taught me and I can use the computer if I am unclear. Also, I know where is the quartermaster's office. There is no problem."   
  
"Chekov, people want to help you. You're going to be lonely as hell if you don't let them."   
  
"If they wish, I will be pleased." Chekov finally stuck a fork into the paella the synthesizer had given him.   
  
"I would like to help you."   
  
Chekov retracted the fork and stared at Sulu with smouldering brown eyes.   
  
"I mean it. Maybe you can ask the computer when you're supposed to turn up for evac drill, or how to carry out a pre-launch check on a shuttle, but it won't go on shore leave with you or send you a birthday card. It's crap at poker too."   
  
Chekov nudged a piece of chicken onto his fork and looked at it.   
  
"Look, I don't know if you're understanding me right or not..."   
  
"I understand you. I speak Standard. I know that you saved my life, and I am grateful, even though it was only to have another pilot on board. Thank you. Is there more?"   
  
Sulu took a turn frowning at the paella.   
  
"I'm not asking you to thank me. I did it because... because someone was trying to kill you and you didn't deserve to die. And... because I like you."   
  
"Pardon?"   
  
Sulu glanced across the table and realised that Chekov wasn't simply being awkward, he was honestly puzzled. Then the pieces fell into place.   
  
"Pasha, I like you."   
  
Chekov heaved an enormous sigh and smiled. "I like you too."   
  
The End


End file.
